How To Time Travel

I meant what I said about being on a break from the regular Tuesday posts, but from time to time I may post something unrelated to any of my current projects or "my brand" (vomits in boot).

As you have probably deduced by now, I am a nerd, possessing a number of geeky hobbies. One of them is an interest in the US Highway system. You know, the major, long distance roads that were replaced by the interstates. Living in the Pacific States, one of the main ones is US 99. I've driven all of it in Northern California and Oregon and am slowly tracing that old highway in Washington: Centrailia. Chehalis. Toledo. Castle Rock. Slowing to 25 as farmland and rolling, wooded hills becomes a small town with old shops and brick buildings; all these towns I've seen on exit signs becoming real. So many stories in those old banks and stores and gas stations. I pause before leaving town, looking down what was the main highway, imagining cars from the 1930s and 1940s trundling along at 45, steam issuing from their radiators in summer. The motels and tire shops---so many killed by the interstates. What happened to the people who ran them? What did they do when their dreams slipped into the past?

Finding these old alignments takes detective work. In California, US 99 is celebrated as a historic route, there are signs pointing you down the correct road. In Oregon, US 99 became State Highway 99. In Washington, you have to be a sleuth, prowling geeky areas of the internet. There are no signs, US 99 has been allowed to slip into what was---for most people.

I drove on I-5 heading north. Driving on interstates always feels like a battle, always jockeying for position, creating a strategy as you go to pass a truck before that car in the fast lane comes up behind you. Shuffling from lane to lane, always on alert---

Not on the old US highways. They have been forgotten aside from locals and a few nerds such as myself. They are calm and relaxing, a reminder of the reward of stepping away from our fast paced world for at least a few hours.

P.S. I have books for sale on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Izaak-Diggs/author/B00EG7OKUY?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=549a4c66-1396-4ddc-adbd-19ec5f49d124