[special-K]

I'm south of US30/Lincoln Hiway about 20-30 miles. I like to take drives on the old roads and hope to do more long distance one day. I fantasize about driving all the way out US30 and other old roads. Rt66 gets a lot of hype, but there are dozens of great old roads that take you through the America you miss on the interstate.

Here in Maryland is where the first national road was built in George Washington's time, and that is what it was called. Back then, there was no coast to coast USA and to be 100 miles into the mainland was the frontier. Rivers were the hiways. The National Road became US40 and now I-70 rides nearby the same path. I've been riding out US40 to the western tip of MD all my life since that's where my mom is from, and the folks moved back in the '70s. Mt. Airy is along old 40, but actually that's Ridgeville with everything grown together now. Downtown is down the hill where the train passed through. It was a water stop for the first commercial railroad, B&O. Now there is a tunnel.

US 50 is another old road I'd like to travel across. It starts in Ocean City, Maryland. After going through Washington, DC it passes through Virginia, then West Virginia, and back into Maryland in the very Southwestern tip in the mountains. The two ends show just how diverse the landscape is in this tiny little state that goes from ocean, across a major bay, across the Piedmont, and over the hills before crossing the nation

The weekend after Labor Day last year my daily driver was down getting head work at my buddy's place and I had his Sonoma. I decided to take a ride out US30 to Western PA and drop down past my mom's on an all day 400 mile loop