Travelling America by car is as simple as strolling along the sea.
Not only the Interstates and the Highways are wide, every street is. Every street.
So no medieval town centres with tiny, winding roads leading you into the pedestrian area (pedestrian area? How ya spell that?), no nervous driving in cramped shopping streets. No nervous driving at all, for that matter, because the speed is way too slow for it.
The two to seven line highways have two other advantages: everyone drives just about the same speed (including trucks and campers) and you keep your lane. Meaning that people drive past you on our 'wrong' side, yes, but you get used to it soon enough.
Entering a three- or fourways is simple too: no funny priority rules, first come, first go.
Everybody keeps to this. And as long as everybody keeps to it, it works brilliant.
The Americans wait endlessy before entering the road (Hwy, Interstate) and only get on to it when there's no car to be seen - so you need not fear cars suddenly appear in your lane.
The Americans do not drive to towns but to roads, ie. roadnumbers. Again: it takes some adjusting but then it's quite simple: 1 North, 280 East, 380 South, Lincoln Street lane, at the end of the off ramp right.
Ok, that was the easy part.
We never figured out the 'organising principle' of the larger towns and cities. Note: the car had no Satnav, and we hadn't brought ours from Holland, thinking we could manage easily because we had good maps!
City centres, for us Europeans the focal point (and the starting point from which to explore a city) are virtually non-existent in the larger cities (I'm not talking NY or SF, although, what would you consider the city centre of these cities?)
And the signposts are not helpful either.
Only a couple of times we saw a 'downtown' sign.
Usually it went like: Lemoore next 4 exits.
On the next sign: Lincoln Bvd next exit, Oak Tree Rd 1.5 m, McMillan Rd 2.5 m., Airdale Rd 4.0 m.
We went to pick the middle one, but more often than not we drove nowhere near a 'centre' and tried to get out again - no mean feat since directions to the nearby hwy's weren't given either.
Ok, we always joke about France with its 'toutes directions' pointing one way and 'autres directions' the other, but at least you know you're on your way out following either of the signs. And since all the roads here are the same size and have the same kind of houses along them it was wildly guessing where to go.
But we've seen a lot of interesting houses, neighbourhoods and all other sorts of memorable signs, and with the good weather we had we didn't mind very much.
We simply couldn't adjust to the idea that the main shops, companies and eateries most times weren't in the centre. We've even seen small towns where all the buying and selling went on along the towns' fringes, ie along the highways, and the town itself was totally residential.
Which brings me to finding motels.
The small towns are simple. You enter via the (old) highway and that's the only street with the car companies, motels, eateries, supermarkets and shops. If the motels aren't situated at the beginning of the town they're at the end, can't miss them.
It gets more difficult in larger towns, because there are more roads into them, and you have to guess along which road the motels are. So we quite often drove up and down through-roads (the old highways) searching, finding in the end a not too good motel (but we had a place to sleep) only to run into all the well-known chain motels the next day. Three minutes from the place we slept.
We noticed something else, something all too visible: the American heydays were in the '50s and '60s.
That was the time when the motels were built - not the chain motels but the classic pop and mom motels and hotels. They were built along the new highways, people were able to buy cars, they started travelling and the motels along the highways flourished.
Then the new Interstates were built because the old highways became too small for the amount of traffic. All of a sudden the motels lay in the middle of nowhere, and the chains built their new and modern motels along the interstate.
The old motels are still there. Some derelict and used to house the very poor, some run by Indians and Pakistani and barely hanging on, and a couple that still somehow manage and are (thus, sorry) run by Americans. A good and old motel is much nicer than a new chain motel. But good and old is not a common combination.
We consider the old motels part of America's social history, but I think we're pretty much alone in that.
Next time we bring our TomTom and drive straight to Super8, Econolodge or the Comfort Inn.
But then we head straight towards our goal and miss all the places we've seen now!
Not only the Interstates and the Highways are wide, every street is. Every street.
So no medieval town centres with tiny, winding roads leading you into the pedestrian area (pedestrian area? How ya spell that?), no nervous driving in cramped shopping streets. No nervous driving at all, for that matter, because the speed is way too slow for it.
The two to seven line highways have two other advantages: everyone drives just about the same speed (including trucks and campers) and you keep your lane. Meaning that people drive past you on our 'wrong' side, yes, but you get used to it soon enough.
Entering a three- or fourways is simple too: no funny priority rules, first come, first go.
Everybody keeps to this. And as long as everybody keeps to it, it works brilliant.
The Americans wait endlessy before entering the road (Hwy, Interstate) and only get on to it when there's no car to be seen - so you need not fear cars suddenly appear in your lane.
The Americans do not drive to towns but to roads, ie. roadnumbers. Again: it takes some adjusting but then it's quite simple: 1 North, 280 East, 380 South, Lincoln Street lane, at the end of the off ramp right.
Ok, that was the easy part.
We never figured out the 'organising principle' of the larger towns and cities. Note: the car had no Satnav, and we hadn't brought ours from Holland, thinking we could manage easily because we had good maps!
City centres, for us Europeans the focal point (and the starting point from which to explore a city) are virtually non-existent in the larger cities (I'm not talking NY or SF, although, what would you consider the city centre of these cities?)
And the signposts are not helpful either.
Only a couple of times we saw a 'downtown' sign.
Usually it went like: Lemoore next 4 exits.
On the next sign: Lincoln Bvd next exit, Oak Tree Rd 1.5 m, McMillan Rd 2.5 m., Airdale Rd 4.0 m.
We went to pick the middle one, but more often than not we drove nowhere near a 'centre' and tried to get out again - no mean feat since directions to the nearby hwy's weren't given either.
Ok, we always joke about France with its 'toutes directions' pointing one way and 'autres directions' the other, but at least you know you're on your way out following either of the signs. And since all the roads here are the same size and have the same kind of houses along them it was wildly guessing where to go.
But we've seen a lot of interesting houses, neighbourhoods and all other sorts of memorable signs, and with the good weather we had we didn't mind very much.
We simply couldn't adjust to the idea that the main shops, companies and eateries most times weren't in the centre. We've even seen small towns where all the buying and selling went on along the towns' fringes, ie along the highways, and the town itself was totally residential.
Which brings me to finding motels.
The small towns are simple. You enter via the (old) highway and that's the only street with the car companies, motels, eateries, supermarkets and shops. If the motels aren't situated at the beginning of the town they're at the end, can't miss them.
It gets more difficult in larger towns, because there are more roads into them, and you have to guess along which road the motels are. So we quite often drove up and down through-roads (the old highways) searching, finding in the end a not too good motel (but we had a place to sleep) only to run into all the well-known chain motels the next day. Three minutes from the place we slept.
We noticed something else, something all too visible: the American heydays were in the '50s and '60s.
That was the time when the motels were built - not the chain motels but the classic pop and mom motels and hotels. They were built along the new highways, people were able to buy cars, they started travelling and the motels along the highways flourished.
Then the new Interstates were built because the old highways became too small for the amount of traffic. All of a sudden the motels lay in the middle of nowhere, and the chains built their new and modern motels along the interstate.
The old motels are still there. Some derelict and used to house the very poor, some run by Indians and Pakistani and barely hanging on, and a couple that still somehow manage and are (thus, sorry) run by Americans. A good and old motel is much nicer than a new chain motel. But good and old is not a common combination.
We consider the old motels part of America's social history, but I think we're pretty much alone in that.
Next time we bring our TomTom and drive straight to Super8, Econolodge or the Comfort Inn.
But then we head straight towards our goal and miss all the places we've seen now!
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