Happy birthday, Interstate Highways

 

It was June 29, 1956, and the paperwork just needed a signature. President Dwight D. Eisenhower put his name on it and it was official.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was real.

What that meant was the creation of the Interstate Highway System.

To some, it means nothing. You wouldn't necessarily know the difference between an interstate route, US route, state route, county road, farm road, and so on. They're just numbers and I understand that.

Expressways -- freeways, tollways, even parkways -- had existed prior to 1956. Now they fell under this new umbrella.

It's a far deeper explanation as to how interstate numbers are assigned that I'll leave up to my road friends because that's really not why I'm here.

There are nuances in each state as well and, yet, not really. But really. Like I said, we're not digging in that deep tonight.

I live within 20 minutes of an interstate highway, with both Interstate 84 and 684 close by. I've driven many of them, from the two I mentioned to 287 to 87 to "the five" and "the 15" to the ends of Interstate 80 in New Jersey and California and Interstate 10 in Florida and Cali.

I've been on hidden interstates (878) and interstates that are glorified exit ramps (175, 375) and have been past those that drive the road community into different camps (97, 99, and others).

When I was younger, there's no question I loved the interstate because it was the fastest way. I've come to appreciate the slower roads as I've gotten older and I guess that's only natural.

But I haven't mentioned my own personal favorite, which comes as no surprise if you know me. Yes, we've all cursed it. I've cursed it in almost every state I've driven it. I've almost driven the whole thing, but not quite. But no interstate screams the happiest days of road trips to me like Interstate 95.

I know. You hate it. You hate it especially in Connecticut and New York and probably New Jersey along with a few other states.

But I've seen its undulating hills in Maine (just not to the very end, which remains a goal) and its urban-to-rural landscape of Virginia and the southern end in Florida.

I've driven it in every condition possible and have sat in myriad delays. The Capital Beltway still gives me fits.

But I also love it. In the road world, the stretch in North Carolina is always maligned as boring among other things. I love that stretch. I find the swampy low country of South Carolina to be more mindboggling, personally.

I've got memories to fill a trunk of Howard Johnson's and state welcome centers and South of the Border billboards.

Memories of the tolls that weren't so annoying as a kid (especially when I could throw the money in the basket) and the tunnels of Baltimore and a brief view of DC from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and the bend around Main Street Station in Richmond and the view of Lower Manhattan and the crossing of the George Washington Bridge or the view via Lake Marion.

Memories of the joy of each border crossing, where things just immediately felt different (I'm weird). The happiest crossing, of course, was Georgia to Florida, until it set in that there were still four hours left until we reached the Tampa Bay area.

Interstate 95 represents the reminder of the culture of the Holiday Inn "Great Sign" and of Stuckey's Pecan Logs and the gas stations that promised clean restrooms and maps (WOOHOO!) and of the other lost brands and roadside icons of a lifetime ago.

Now it's the beginning of Waffle House in Elkton, Maryland, and the nearest Wawa or Sheetz.

I've got near and dear memories to my heart of just us and a few trucks as the radio played in the still of a South Carolina early morning. My dad would explain to me why he flashed his lights to a truck and their flashing lights back were to thank him for a road maneuver -- a thing I do to this day.

That's exactly why I love traveling in the dead of the night because I can still hear those echoes of a wayward AM radio station and being able to count the number of cars on the road with me. I can hear my family, even when we weren't saying a word.

In that darkness, I might look for a sign with Pedro, telling me another non-politically correct joke and the exact number of miles to the land of T-shrits and coffee mugs.

Someone will nitpick this (or generally ignore it) and I get it. But there's joy in writing about this for me. The details might be fuzzy but the feeling is real.

Happy birthday, you flawed system of brilliance. I look forward to driving you once again.