Route 50 Ways to See the Country A rental car, three pals and seven days of blacktop

idway through our weeklong cross-country drive start of Route 50 in downtown O.C. A creeping street breakfast from the cooler, we buckled up and drove for thoroughfare, pandering to our least we’d make up some time—a Junction, a town full of art galleries and downtown public California’s flat, hot Sacramento Valley. Route 50 officially Getting There last September from Ocean City, Md., to San cleaner slowed our access, which we chose to read as a a few hours, finding brunch at a small-town diner. A larger wholesome desires for fast food, miscalculation. The Kansas State sculpture. Here, 50 teams up with Interstate 70 for a bolt ends in Sacramento as it’s absorbed by Interstate 80. But Francisco, we were feeling saddle sore. Lenore, positive omen. meal in the early evening allowed us time for a walk and cheap trinkets and high speeds. Fair proved a rich distraction, with through the deserts, swells and ranges of eastern Utah. the old highway once continued westward to the coast, ∫ Slow down. Take two or three weeks to cross the Bill and I veered our bug-caked rental car off U.S. Route But the first day was disconcerting, full of jerking stops an hour of night driving before bed. The highway dragged us away its ultra-patriotic rodeo and the This stretch was a window-full of eye candy, with its so we pressed on, over dry oak-savannah hills into cool, country, and really savor the drive. Wander off track, 50 and eased onto Main Street, Hutchinson, at almost everything that caught our Our initial plan was to sleep in what we had imagined from the sandy shores of Maryland proud, shrieking champions in the rainbow-colored mesas and canyons. damp San Francisco. chat with the locals, smell the vegetation. Kan. At a junk shop, from a shelf of assorted interest: fruit stands, antiques stores, would be charming old motor courts, but after a few and shot us across the loamy poultry barn. After several hours, we After crossing the mountains of central Utah, we split Crossing the Bay Bridge, we picked up Geary Street ∫ If you’re hesitant to trot your own car back and forth animals, we found a road-trip mascot, a mirrored balls, farm scenes, tourist info glimpses of mildewed rooms, exhausted mattresses, shag Atlantic Coastal Plain through the wrenched ourselves back to the road from the freeways and crossed the dessicated Sevier west through the city, finally hitting the Pacific Ocean at across the country, or simply don’t have a lot of time, plastic donkey straining against a harness— centers, unusual bridge abutments. A paltry carpeting and greasy wood paneling, we opted for the heart of D.C., sliding between the White and settled into the flat, agricultural Desert, haunted by gaunt cattle lingering by the roadside. Point Lobos. A vivid sunset smeared the waves blue and consider renting a car. We rented a Buick LeSabre a hauling ass. 350 miles at day’s end in Bridgeport, W.Va., stainless chain motels found near 50’s intersections with House and the Washington Monument as groove of the Arkansas River Valley, following We traversed the Confusion Range, paid a visit to rugged crimson. (smooth ride, but lots of dive and squat) for $460 a How fitting. We were shoehorning our forced us to adopt a discipline for the rest any interstate highway. We tried a few bed-and-breakfasts, Constitution Avenue. It carried us over the Potomac, 50 into the higher plains and dry rangelands of western Great Basin National Park, and began a 400-mile A week on the road suddenly seemed too fleeting. The week from National Car Rental. A few miles down the coast-to-coast trip into seven 500-mile days, of the trip: We’d allow ourselves two or three too, but generally had poor luck with our last-minute crept across the Piedmont in Virginia, twisted through Kansas and eastern Colorado. roller-coaster ride through the ranges and basins of Nevada, ever-changing swath through America had streaked past road, we discovered that the oil was very low. The while snatching scraps of spare time to eyeball a few major diversions per day, plus a few curiosity requests. the Alleghenies, rolled through southern Ohio and Hugging the Arkansas River deep into the Rockies, we which officially named its stretch of Route 50 “The as a rocking blur, hypnotizing us with the drone and hiss wheels were out of alignment, too, but we got used to local wonders. Our mission was to drive the entire 3,200- stops, which should enable us to realize our goal of We never regretted our choice of highway. Unlike a stretched out through the rich, flat farmlands of southern abandoned the river’s headwaters to cross 11,312-foot Loneliest Road in America.” of engine and pavement. The three of us agreed—we still it. When we dropped off the car, National gave us a mile length of Route 50, a rough-spun asphalt thread spanning the continent in a week. monotonous freeway, Route 50 shifts its character with Indiana and Illinois. Monarch Pass, the route’s highest point, at the Continental From the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, 50 climbs up felt like driving on. credit for the oil we bought. stretching across the nation’s midriff. We had to drop some ballast. The first thing to go: every click of the odometer. It can be a slim, lonely After crossing the Mississippi River at St. Louis, we Divide. Streaking down out of the mountains, we followed to and skirts the forested, granite edges of Lake Tahoe, After a Saturday night of carnival delights in Ocean three squares a day. We’d save time, we decided, by eating filament, beaded with small towns untainted with swooped through the limey hills of Missouri and into the the old “Rainbow Route” into the widening Gunnison tunnels through a sacred Washoe Indian site (Cave Rock) Text and graphic by Patterson Clark — The Washington Post ∫ For a return flight back, look for one-way ticket deals. City, we rose early, kicked the engine and drove to the only two big meals a day. So, after a light predawn franchises, or it can swell into a corpulent, tricked-out tree-sparse farmlands of eastern Kansas, where we thought River Valley until it hit the Colorado River at Grand and then slides down the wetter side of the Sierra into Watch the coast-to-coast video of the trip at www.washingtonpost.com/travel. JetBlue flew us from Oakland to Dulles for $100 each.

29 San Francisco 20 Royal Gorge, Colo. 19 Pueblo, Colo. 16 Hutchinson, Kan. 14 Jefferson City, Mo. 11 Olney, Ill. 7 Seip Mound, Ohio 6 Athens, Ohio An Athens, Ohio, clock tower. 1 Ocean City, Md. Before I-80 gobbled it up, Route 50 23 San Rafael Reef, Utah Stroll across the The nicely preserved The second week of September Madison’s Cafe features whopping portions Police officers’ shoulder patches Built by the Hopewell Indians 2,100 The Court Street Diner Stroll the boardwalk, continued from Sacramento to San The highway slips through world’s highest historic business district draws the Kansas State Fair of savory food. Walk it off by strolling west sport the image of the town’s years ago, it was used as a burial caters to the collegiate chew saltwater taffy Francisco. Cross the Bay Bridge and a cut in a towering line suspension bridge, closes up tight on with its rodeos, rides and a few blocks to the Capitol to view major attraction: albino squirrels. mound for 600 years. set and serves up tasty and watch kids win follow Geary Street to Point 1,200 feet above the weeknights. livestock displays. the Thomas Hart Benton murals buttermilk pancakes. SpongeBob dolls of colossal sandstone North Bend, Ohio Lobos. slabs jutting out of Arkansas River. Eat a roasting in the House Lounge. 8 from jaded The tomb of the ninth president, the earth. ear dipped in carnies. 21 Monarch Pass, Colo. butter. 15 Tallgrass Prairie 12 Lebanon, Ill. William Henry Harrison, overlooks the Ohio River Valley. Route 50’s highest National Charles Dickens slept elevation, at 11,312 feet. Preserve, Kan. at the Mermaid House 9 Aurora, Ind. 24 Sevier Desert, Utah 17 West Kansas See 11,000 acres of in 1842. The inn is A roadside produce Watch for swans in 26 Eureka, Nev. Parched range and a salty lake offer the Chesapeake Bay. A nutcracker Labeled “Scenic prairie, the way it now renovated and stand features The trip’s best food and little sustenance to scrawny, dying at Monarch Pass. View,” a roadside used to be. open for tours. Indian corn. lodging: the Jackson Hotel. cattle. overlook presents a 4 Winchester, Va. 2 Salisbury, Md. panoramic vista of a Central Plains The visitors center Aesop’s Tables reeking, fly-choked milk snake features a hometown serves tasty butter cattle feedlot. shrine to singer rum muffins and MISSOURI Patsy Cline. fills its walls with UTAH ILLINOIS local “attitude art.” 26 Day 6 Kansas City Cincinnati PA. 24 Day 5 KANSAS Day 4 Day 2 Day 7 25 23 COLORADO Day 3 INDIANA 6 27 22 21 20 15 St. Louis 8 MARYLAND N.J. 14 9 7 5 Sacramento 19 18 13 12 11 10 OHIO 4 28 16 WEST D.C. 17 VA. 18 Las Animas, Colo. KENTUCKY 3 DEL. Atlantic Ocean NEVADA A converted church now START houses La Mission, a 2 1 FINISH 29 restaurant that serves 10 Bedford, Ind. VIRGINIA Day 1 San Francisco burritos under a Famous for its fine cathedral ceiling. 13 St. Louis limestone, often CALIFORNIA The stainless-steel- Pacific Ocean used for federal covered Gateway Arch, buildings. a monument to western 25 Great Basin 5-5 Allegheny Mountains, W.Va. 27 Lake Tahoe, Nev. National Park, Nev. expansion, stands 630 feet high, 630 feet wide. Take a break from the hairpin Route 50 bores Drive to 10,000 feet and turns at a roadside apple through Cave Rock, hike to the 13,000-foot stand. Crab claw from a sacred site of the summit of Mount the Pacific Washoe lndians. Wheeler—if you can shore. spare an extra day. 22 Gunnison, Colo. 28 Placerville, Calif. Katie’s Cookery offers friendly service 3-3 Washington, D.C. Stop for a dessert at and killer portobello sandwiches. Route 50, as Sweetie Pie’s. Constitution Avenue, A fossil trilobite from the WWII veteran Robert A. Watters dries out A Thomas Hart Benton mural in Jefferson City, Mo., passes by the mountains of eastern Nevada. Gunnison’s flags after a rain-soaked Patriot Day. envisions a scene from the state’s early history. Washington Monument.