Welcome back to another week here on the Backroads. I have decided this week it's time once again to break up the Scavenger Hunt blogs and present you with another amazing Roadworthy Resource. I find that now when I go to bookstores I run straight to the travel section looking for anything that is not a Fodors, hoping to see something that I have not noticed. I also realize I am very new fan of a very old medium. I find that books I am discovering are new and improved 3ed editions of books that have been around for at least a decade. This weeks Roadworthy Resource is one such book.
This weeks resource (if you didn't notice in the title) is Road Trip USA Cross Country Adventures on America's Two Lane Highways by Jamie Jensen. This book is just a heck of thing even sitting on the bookshelf. Its a 900 page color coded monster with cover art that painfully similar to the mock ups of the soon to be revealed Bruce on the Backroads logo. The art (as you can see) is reminiscent of the old postcards from all over the county that would say things like “Welcome to (insert your place here)” and although it has nothing to do with the book at all, it really made me want to like it.
Thank goodness the fantastic qualities of this book stretch far beyond the cover. This book takes the theory that I always felt was true, and never explored to see if anyone agreed, that the country is just different small road trips, that you can, if you so choose, daisy chain together. Road Trip USA” breaks the country up into 11 of the big adventure worthy US roadtrips, including Route 66 and the Atlantic Coast which in this book runs from the Statue of Liberty to Key West. If the second you unfold the front or back cover maps in this book you don't immediately hear a Jerry Reed soundtrack playing in your head you are in one of two groups, either under 30, or most likely dead.
This book in its colorful picture laden layout just makes you excited to get in a car and point it somewhere, anywhere that teaches you a little more about the large chunk of land you pledged allegiance to every day in elementary school. Every page of this book is filled with a ton of fantastic information as well as maps, pictures of attractions, postcards, stamps and even state quarters.
However my test of a good book, especially a good travel book, is how easy can I find information that I want, and can use. I decided to give this book a test a week or two ago when my fiancée and went to the Land of Little Horses just outside of Gettysburg, PA. We knew that we would be in town for a few hours and that we did not want to look over the battlefields. We decided this was the perfect test to see if in a pinch, if this book was only fantastic inspiration, or if it could really help us on one of our one shot Sunday day trips. Now I am not sure if I just hit the book in its wheelhouse, but it gave me very concise, very useful tips. This book seems to give every small city and town or two a few paragraph write up, in an attempt to let you know the couple of things you should try to see.
For Gettysburg it talked extensively (as far as this book is concerned) about the Military Historical Park, touched on the Lincoln Highway for 3/4 page (which is a lot of real estate in this 900 plus page tome), suggested two places to stay, and suggested the Dobbin House as a good place to eat. We took the last tip, and tried the Dobbin House Tavern. The restaurant is in the oldest building in Gettysburg and was part of the Underground Railroad, and to their credit makes a heck of a spit roasted chicken.
This is all I ever ask from a travel book, give me information that I might not know, make it so I can find it, and be reasonably OK with its advice. Rarely do I find a book that can do this, which is why I have so few travel books in my collection. However this book hit on all cylinders, which really surprised me. This is the textbook to a masters class in road tripping.
This book also does a great job of deciding when to teach you things, and when to tell you things. In some cases the book will give you extensive information, such as the ¾ of a page about the Lincoln Highway, so you know what you are seeing, and why you want to see it. In most cases it just gives you a few hundred words about a town or two you might want to check out. Mix this with the Detour sections that point you to bigger cities and sites that are off the course of the set road trip, but are worth seeing, and the 2 page write ups about the big cities you see on the trip, and you really have 900 pages of some of the best information available about the back roads of the USA.
Also as a note Jamie Jensen also has a website at www.roadtripusa.com with a blog and podcasts, as well as resources about the 11 road trips in the book. Check it out, there really is a lot a great information there, I will also be featuring the book in the Amazon window here on the Backroads.
Remember if you have a Roadworthy Resource you feel I need to know about, please let me know by either letting me know on the Facebook group, or send me an email @ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thanks for reading.
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