Long before the sterile interstate highways sliced the country like surgical scars, there was another America. An America of winding roads, scenic overlooks, and county fairs. And if you leave the main highway, you’ll still see this other America, a place of soft-serve ice cream, Mom and Pop motels, one-stop-light hamlets and cornball town names like Gnaw Bone, Indiana and Blue Ball, Ohio.
As far as I know, no one has ever written a book just about US 50. But I’m sure one could write a book about this most American of highways as it traverses the states. From its eastern terminus in Ocean City, Maryland to its western endpoint in West Sacramento, US 50 still offers a glimpse of what the USA once was. I've often thought - if I lived in a fantasy world of no responsibilities or schedules and endless dollars to fill my gas tank and belly - that it would be fun simply to get on US 50 in Ocean City and just keep driving west, chronicling the colorful characters and offbeat businesses along the way. Of course I can't do that, so we'll have to settle on small stretches. I've been on many parts of US 50 in my 40 -plus years on this planet: stretches in Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In fact, if the whole highway is 3073 miles in length, I have probably driven two-thirds of it at various times. Below are some highlights from US 50 in southern Indiana:
MOM & POP MOTELS: Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson brought interstate anonymity to the lodging industry, but before the chains came along the industry was largely mom and pop “motor inns” by the highway, their neon “vacancy” signs drawing in the weary traveler. I saw this beauty along US 50 outside of Bedford, Indiana. Unfortunately, I rarely stay at Mom & Pop places anymore (actually, I rarely travel anymore so I rarely stay anywhere!), the experience is just too hit and miss. I once found myself having to stay at an utterly wretched Mom & Pop place in Cleveland and when I inquired at the front-desk if they had a room available, the clerk asked me: “For the whole night?” Yet, I have stayed in very adequate ones. Rachel and I stayed in this mom and pop motel several years ago when I was giving a talk in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It was very nice.
ICE CREAM: Some of the best frozen treats can be found on America’s backroads, whether it be a locally owned and churned soft-serve or a Diary Queen Dilly Bar. I spotted this ice cream dive along US 50 in southern Indiana and I’ll write a slogan for them: you can’t beat the Jiffy Treat! There's a little soft-serve shack off a side-road in Mason, Ohio that makes their soft-serve ice cream into the shape of elephants and other animals, I can't wait till our daughter gets old enough to have one of those cones!
GROCERY STORES: Sleepy hamlets are still one of the few places where one can spot tired-looking IGAs or Mom and Pop grocery stores. These are the places that pan-fry their own chicken to sell in the deli, have their own butcher on staff to hand-slice meats or someone back in the bakery makes homemade pies to sell. These are the grocery stores of yore. Yes, I like my Kroger Marketplace as much as anyone, but there’s something to miss in the “everyone knows everyone” atmosphere of a small-town grocery. When I lived in Oxford, Ohio in the mid-1990s a sleepy IGA still held on and I’d often find myself lured to their dimly lit aisles as opposed to the big chain supermarkets.
Missy
LOL, the town I live in still has a little mom and pop IGA complete with deli (with fried chicken and fried fish on Fridays) a bakery, and a butcher. We generally do our major shopping at Aldi's in the big town, but still manage to spend our share there. I'd hate for them to close! Wonder how they are doing since the new Dollar General came to town?
Terry Alger
I love that you took time to be nostalgic about Route 50! Those were slower, more innocent times that would be good to repeat in the current age. I noted in your article that you say Route 50 goes thru Pennsylvania; but, it does not. From Maryland, it goes in to Virginia, then West Virginia, then westward into Ohio. I grew up in Winchester, VA, which is intersected by Route 50. Pennsylvania is well north.
Please keep the great articles and recipes! I am saving my nickels and dimes with the aim of buying your books.
Kevin
Thanks, Terry, I should have known better on that US 50 route!
Tom The Backroads Traveller
Kevin, US Route 20 (the longest Us Route in the country) cuts across New York State just south of my home. I have collected photos of vanishing Americana in this area. Tom The Backroads Traveller
Kevin
And you collect those photos better than about anyone, Tom, always fun to see what you are out there chronicling!
Lola LB
Its really cool to know what to expect if I just get on rt. 50 and keep going. My childhood home and where I live now are just 5-10 minutes away from Rt. 50, so it's been a part of my life as long as I can remember. And, as a child, we would often visit my grandfather in Virginia, so we'd get onto the road when we got over there to hit the road that led to Leesburg/Round Hill.
Maybe someday, we'll get onto Rt. 50 and just keep going all the way to California.
Kevin
That's be a long - but amazing - journey!
lincolnlady1121
I love the back roads better than the interstates any day. I like to stop at the Mom and Pop stores, IGA Stores, good old A&W Root Beer and more. Oh, I also like to stop and eat at what my Mother use to call "slop joints" or the "greasy spoon" - Mom and Pop Restaurants. Those places were real home cooking. Oh, and stop at the tourist places that you don't see anymore. These places are the true America. You see people how they really live.
Marilyn
Kevin
Yep, well said...get off the interstates, explore, eat at the non-chain serve-breakfast-all-day diners...yum!
Carol Crowe Phillips
I always wanted to go on trips like you talked about. TV shows and movies where they depicted that always made me long to do it too. My mother always just shook her head when I would talk about that. Maybe it's that romanticized idealism that writers have that makes us long to do that.
Kevin
I hear you, Carol...Amtrak actually recently started a "writers in residence" program that offers free train trips for writers on the rails...that sounds fun!
Myron Curry
US 50 has been my front door for 77 years. Born and raised on the south side...built a new home across the road.
Kevin
Pretty neat, Myron, where on US 50 do you live?