America’s Roads
There was an accident along my normal route to work this morning, so I took a different way that put me on Route 1 from south of the beltway. It was really interesting to see all the retail, lodging, and restaurants along the huge strip there. There were restaurants of every imaginable cuisine (I saw one with Caribbean food, and now I want callaloo!), including a Krispy Kreme complete with the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign and a drive-through! There was plenty to gawk at, but I was driving, so I resolved to look up US Route 1 when I got to work. I’ve been finding a lot of interesting things about America’s historic roads, including Route40.net which has a lot of pictures from along the entire National Road. I grew up near the Ellicott City portion of Route 40, which is included in the Maryland scrapbook on that site. Route 66 probably gets the most attention of all of America’s famous historic roads, but there’s an interesting site called Route50.com as well - I live fairly close to Route 50 in Virginia. (Note: Route 66 is not the same thing as Interstate 66, which I take at least once a day to get just about anywhere.) As for Route 1, Wired magazine sent a correspondent on a road trip along the entire length last year. I was able to find out a little more about it, but there’s not a whole lot of information on its history in the mid-Atlantic area. I did come across the interesting site BeyondDC, though, which was educational as well.
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I actually work right off of that strip of Rt. 1, well, if what you are referring to is Rt. 1 South of Alexandria but north of Lorton. It is a vast stretch of strip malls with many different kinds of establishments. A bit bewildering, but at least they have some character and aren’t just the same chains over and over.
As far as Rt. 1, although it goes through the DC area, I’ve never really had to use it for commuting, so the first I really had to use it on a daily basis was on my honeymoon last year in Key West. I got the idea after that, that I wanted to do a Road Trip from one end of it to the other. Of course to do something like that and actually see anything with any detail you would probably need a month at least! Just driving it streight I’m thinking would probably take you 48 hours (not including sleeping breaks of course) because the average speed limit is probably something like 40mph…
Thanks for the links! I had no idea that Rt. 50 went accross country, now I have another road trip to plan!