Ted Grimsrud—February 18, 2019

For as long as I can remember, I have loved road maps. When I was maybe 13 I found an almost mint condition road map for Oregon from 1950. What was special about that map was that it was of Oregon before the Interstate Highway System. I was fascinated especially by Highway 99 before it was superseded by I-5. Quite a few of the little towns, especially in the southern part of the state, virtually disappeared after the new highway came—Divide, Curtain, Wilbur, Azalea, Wolf Creek….

I spent hours imagining road trips around 1950s Oregon. Then, when I got hold of a road atlas for the entire US, the imaginary trips expanded. Finally, in 1971 when I was 17 I was able to hit the road with my parents and younger sister. We drove all the way out to Virginia. We mostly followed the interstates, and I got to drive about half the time. One highlight, though, was when I drove through pre-I-64 West Virginia in the rain. That was a long but beautiful drive. Since we moved to Virginia in 1996, I learned that the road I drove back in 1971 still exists in much the form it had back then because I-64 traversed a much different path. US Route 60 (the “Midland Trail”) from Charleston to Lewisburg remains a long and beautiful drive.

Happily, when I married Kathleen I found a kindred spirit who also loves road trips. We got started pretty slowly since we didn’t have a car for the first ten years of our marriage (though we did borrow her parents’ car for a memorable trip from Arizona to Indiana to Saskatchewan and back in 1983). But once we got our new Honda in 1991 we took every chance we could get. We’ve driven back and forth across the country at least seven times, with quite a few shorter trips as well. We would have liked to have done more and hope still to take many trips. We’ve learned that we have extra fun when we avoid the interstates as much as possible (at least once we made it all the way from Harrisonburg, VA to Eugene, OR, without a single mile of interstate driving).

Road trips mean road food

I have to admit to having a less than sophisticated palette when it comes to meals while traveling. All too often, I have been content to settle for fast food chains or bags of snack food. Even so, from time to time we have randomly struck gold. Surely the most interstate- and fast food-intensive cross country trip came in 1998 when it was just our son Johan (then 16) and me. But we stumbled upon a terrific breakfast spot in the mountains west of Missoula, MT (it might have been Durango’s in Superior, MT). If the two of us were to repeat that drive, that’s the one place where we ate that we would return to, as Johan would never stand for fast food these days. Continue reading “The joys and dilemmas of road food (Looking West #3)” →