Читать книгу RVs & Campers For Dummies - Christopher Hodapp - Страница 30

There’s an unofficial motto of RVers: “What’s your hurry?” That’s why so many of us like stargazing, because we like to be where we can still see the night sky and then take the time to do it. The interstate is great, but RVers love to take the scenic route. If you ask about it around the campfire, someone will have done Route 66, at least part of it. Sooner or later, you’ll probably be tempted to do some of it yourself.

I-40, from North Carolina to Barstow, California, is the modern interstate covering the most miles of old Route 66, the ones west of the Mississippi. But don’t confuse it with U.S. Route 40, the old National Road, which has its own fans. Like 66, it’s also called the Main Street of America for the number of cities and towns it passes through, particularly across the Midwest. But U.S. 40 is farther north than the I-40 that covers much of Route 66. Confused yet?

It’s an acquired skill, finding the old roads, especially if you’re doing Route 66, because it was decommissioned as a highway. You can’t stay on it all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, and sometimes, just finding a particular stretch of it can be tough. To try to save part of it, states stepped in and recommissioned selected stretches as “Historic Route 66,” with special signs. But driving some parts can be dicey for a big RV. For example, one famous stretch is called the Oatman Highway, up to the mining ghost town of Oatman, Arizona. With its 48 miles of incessant, hairpin, switchback turns, on a two-way road with opposing traffic and no shoulder, it’s a road restricted to vehicles under 40 feet. In the old days, this section was called “Bloody 66.” Lots of RVers have done it, but you need to approach with caution.

It takes planning to do any of the Mother Road. Planning it is the fun part. There are smartphone apps out there, like the Route 66 Ultimate Guide, and there’s also the lovingly written and regularly updated Route 66: EZ66 Guide for Travelers, by Jerry McClanahan (National Historic Route 66 Federation). Sources like these will help you follow the choppy and broken route that can get you so quickly and frustratingly lost.

RVers love all these slower, scenic routes, and they talk about them a lot. Unlike Route 66, most of them are still commissioned U.S. highways, and they make for great trips. You can follow the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail or the Great River Road, steering the course of the Mississippi River through ten states. There are apps for both trips and websites of people who’ve done it.

Here are just a few of the major old U.S. highways, apart from Route 66 and Route 40, that you’ll also hear about around the campfire:

 U.S. 30 and U.S. 20: These roads run parallel to one another, and both are parallel to I-90, running across the northern United States from east to west. They still call U.S. 30 the Lincoln Highway, and it still runs from New Jersey to Oregon, while U.S. 20, the longest highway in America, is still the old Yellowstone Trail. Both are famed for their incredible scenery.

 Highway 101, the King’s Highway, or old El Camino Real: The great north–south West Coast highway. It’s famed for its remarkable scenic drives and hairpin mountain curves. It runs from Los Angeles to Mount Olympus in Washington State. The Pacific Coast Highway, also incredibly popular for RVs, is a state road, California State Route 1.

 U.S. 1: The major north–south East Coast highway is the old Atlantic Highway, running from the Canadian border to Key West in Florida, through just about every major East Coast town.

 Dixie Overland Highway: Not to be confused with the Dixie Highway, the Overland runs east–west. It’s the old auto route between Savannah, Georgia, and California, across the South. Much of it is the old Route 80, a haven, like Route 66, for nostalgia, Southern-style, with some very pretty towns.

There are scenic highway websites, like the very good www.myscenicdrives.com. But in the planning stage of any trip, you just can’t beat the National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways (National Geographic). Every region of the country is here, all 50 states, with 300 suggested drives on the old U.S. routes, as well as the state and county roads. Each drive offers a few brief but detailed paragraphs on the condition of the roads, sights to see, even suggested times of year, and the majority of them can be easily done in a day.