In 2015 Dan Sadgrove drove 5,000 miles across the bottom of the U.S., from California to Louisiana. He avoided interstates whenever possible, sticking instead to the lonely roads that connect America’s small towns. Along the way he read William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways: A Journey Into America,” and though the book was written more than 30 years before his trip, he found that much of what Heat-Moon wrote reflected his own experience. The resulting video offers three minutes of Americana, seen through the windshield and rear-view mirror.
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Nice film. I’ve tried reading “Blue Highways” a couple times, but I just can’t get into Heat Moon’s style. Maybe its time to try again.
When I read Blue Highways, I’d already driven many blue highways of the US west. I could closely relate to Moon’s urge to get avoid the treadmill highways, both physically and culturally.
Recently, partner Jane and I travelled blue highways in SW France. Some were 1-lane wide, on occasion, we needed to back-up (to a slight widening) up to allow an on-coming car to get by. Stayed at an Airbnb along one of those routes, in a ~3 hundred year-old hamlet occupied by 11 people and their farm animals.
Of course, I/we need to get to some places more quickly, so we use freeways. However, my (our) preference is drive blue highways whenever we can.