The old highways are filled with surprises. Route 46 in western New Jersey, for example, is a two-lane country road, nothing like the frenetic autobahn it is in Passaic and Bergen counties. Off the interstates are cafes where your meal is cooked to order. It takes a little longer, but you don't wind up with the same hamburger you had yesterday 800 miles away in a burger place of the same name. Farmers and tradespeople, teachers, and cops stop in for lunch and to socialize.
People love to talk about their weather.
Even if you order a veggie burger in such great beef states as Wyoming and Utah, no one looks at you funny. Nev. He puts down his tire iron and smiles when you ask about this business of Route 50 being the most desolate highway in the universe, which is how state tourism officials bill it. Yeah, I know that's what they say. But 50's not so lonely. You ought to come around here on a Friday night or a Saturday night and check out the highway.