Highway 50: Ain't That America!
A little wacky, a little mysterious, this saga of a journey along one of America's oldest cross-country routes offers vicarious adventure to the house-bound, as well as a sense of wonder at what lies ahead at the next gas pump, eatery or small town along Route 50. Lilliefors, a former correspondent for the Associated Press, gets on the road first mapped by Washington and later traveled by pioneers where it starts in Maryland and follows it for several months to California. In person he seems to be a laconic but charismatic presence, attracting people at each place he parks his old Ford. As he tells it here, Lilliefors stopped in a host of out-of-the-way hamlets along Route 50 in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and California. The author's gift for dialogue makes the blase waitresses and macho barflies, coal miners, oystermen, ranchers and others he meets come alive. His account is enriched by the bits of regional history he inserts and by his propensity to go off the road to track down local lore. Photos not seen by PW.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.