Road Maps

One of my favourite books is National Geographic's Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways (the 275 Best Drives in the U.S.). I can think of no more enjoyable way of spending an hour or so than studying some of these drives alongside a good road atlas such as the Rand McNally midsize edition. In the process, you learn such a lot about a country at once familiar and foreign to so many Europeans. I learn, for example, that there are no coast-to-coast U.S. highways. The nearest thing to that is U.S. Route 50 which stretches from Ocean City, Maryland, to West Sacramento, California (though prior to 1972 it did extend all the way to San Francisco on the Pacific Coast). On the other hand, there are three Interstate highways linking the Pacific to the Atlantic: I-10 from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida, I-80 from San Francisco to New York, and I-90 from Seattle to Boston.

It is fascinating, too, to trace the regular grid-like appearance of the U.S. highways characterising so much of the Midwest and to compare it with the sprawling network of roads in other parts of the country.

And my favourite highway? It's the only one I've actually driven along and is the beautiful Farm to Market Road 170 leading from Lajitas to Presidio in Texas beside the Rio Grande and Big Bend Ranch State Park.
"One of the most spectacular routes in Texas, El Camino del Rio - the River Road - plunges over mountains and into steep canyons, following the sinuous Rio Grande through the desolate but beautiful Chihuahuan Desert."