While most of my friends — the sane ones, anyway — were buying houses and raising families in the 1970s, I was seeing the U.S.A. in a Volkswagen bus that I had customized to be a comfy home away from home.
I had globetrotted in previous years and realized after my return stateside that I knew more about the Far East than East L.A., so I embarked on a year-on, year-off, year-on exploration of the contiguous 48 states. I had seen Hawaii and Alaska traveling to and from Japan and, except for Kentucky and Montana, ended up driving through the other 46 states courtesy of the interstate highway system, which celebrates its 52 anniversary this week.
The system was the brainchild of President Eisenhower, who believed that the U.S. needed a first-class national road system for military transportation like the German Autobahn in the event of war with the Soviet Union.
That war never came, of course, but the system — officially known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways — kept growing and today includes 47,000 miles of highway, 14,750 interchanges, 55,500 bridges and 104 tunnels. But no traffic lights.
The interstate’s impact on America, as well as my peripatetic travels, was profound.
From the interstates grew suburbs, service stations, motels and strip malls, not to mention the recreation vehicle boom and O.J. Simpson’s low-speed police chase.
There also have been downsides.
It could mean a death sentence for a rural burg if the interstate passed it by, most famously the necklace of towns along legendary Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. The highways also were nearly a fatal blow for America’s decrepit passenger rail system. Gridlock entered the nation’s vocabulary and stayed, while all of those service stations, motels and strip malls are not exactly eye candy.
And, more recently, the interstates and the lengthy commutes they have encouraged have become a bane and a pain in the face of soaring gasoline prices.
All that said, I have many fond memories of my travels on America’s interstates and the highways and byways and interesting places and people that the interstates took me to.
Here are a few . . .
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