Roads and Highways Books

This book tells about a fairly new kind of highway interchange - the SPUI. It is very informative and shows many photos of SPUIs in operation. I recommend this for anyone interested in roads. To find out if there is a SPUI near you, go to http://members.xoom.com/_XOOM/spui/spui/index.html

Snow Fence Guide is the definitive text on snow fence analysis, planning and installation. Well-written and easy-to-follow, Tabler explains the physics behind snow drifting and how it relates to roads, airfields, and railroads. The book has practical advice on siting, wind, and fence materials. Overall this valuble reference for engineers and others interested in protecting transportation facilities or in harvesting drifting snow to enhance soil moisture at specific locations is a worthwhile addition to a technical or professional library.

I would like to know what the traffic signal cabinet, signal controller, cabinet components, signal system are and how they work at the local street.

Saying too much only gives it all away....
I am positive Mr. Murphy has meticulously researched and put in tremendous effort to bring about the ideas he wants his readers to experience in - Two wheels Two countries One dream.
I sure hope all you bikers around the world will go through this book at least once in your lifetime!
For those who are not into reading....it's time you pulled off the Freeway and let this Journey show you how......
Thanks.....a ton Daniel!

Dr. Dickinson has worked on the Walton Road project for several years, tracing one of the first roads into middle Tennessee. He walked it, explored it, and documented it; and thereby preserved a part of the past that saw Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Cherokee Indians, Longhunters, and pioneers pass from eastern Tennessee to the Cumberland River. Aside from the historic value, the book gives a fascinating insight into the hardships, the terrain, and the people who dared the wilderness.

Jeanne Zornes has provided a tremendous help for those worn out with life's struggles. Her solid biblical teaching, combined with witty and poignant stories, encourages and equips the reader. I highly recommend it.

Do not travel without this book, unless you have time to waste looking for places to refuel your car, your stomach, or your backsides. dbw

Purchased this book just before our month long cross-country trip (May 9 - June 7) towing our 18' travel trailer. It was very helpful. Second would be Trailer Life, Woodall's and finally AAA Tour Books.
Read the reviews before purchase, had no trouble using the information whatever direction we were going. After all, it's not rocket science or brain surgery.

We just came back from vacation, this book came in very handy when we wanted to settle in for the night. We would look to see if the hotel we wanted was at that exit and what restaurants were around it.

It's a shame that other BETTER interstate travel guides are out-of-print and thus not 'updated', such as the original "The Next Exit Guide: North Atlantic Region." The Next Exit Guide: North Atlantic Region was much more advanced-ahead of its time, organized by interstate rather than by state, had boat loads more information (contact, phone #, points of interest, etc). Even with some non-updated information, I find it still is better. And then I use this book as a backup for changes.

My husband and I love this book. We travel in the winter and find this to be so helpful as we travel on interstates mostly. There are no guesses as to what's at an exit. We know!! We had a 2000 version and found we needed to get the newer book. It's an invaluable tool.

I bought this book over 25 years ago. I picked it up by random because the the book's cover synopsis was intriguing. This book has been one of those books that I come back to over and over again. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone who seeks a soul-searching adventure. You will feel like you are travelling right along with the author; experiencing his adventures and depth of self-discovery,,, first-hand.

Buy this book and it will be a treasured book that you too, will come back to again, over and over throughout the years.

If you stop to think about it, this book and those like it really aren't about anything - just a person driving around the country because his relationship wasn't going well and he didn't have anything else to do. But for those of us who love to travel, doing it in person or vicariously through the words of a good travel writer is equally enjoyable, and Moon's anecdotes and experiences - the take he has on humanity - is ample reward for accompanying him on his wanderings.

This is an excellent journal of a troubled man's attempt to try to figure out who he is by taking a solitary journey to meet real people and see real places in this country. For all the loners and independent thinkers out there this is our "magic bus".

"When the mystical young Black Elk went to the summit of Harney Peak to see the shape of things, he looked down on the great unifying hoop of peoples," William Least Heat-Moon writes during the Southern leg of his road trip around the United States described in "Blue Highways". "I looked down and saw fragments."

Readers of "Blue Highways" see fragments, too. Fragments of land; Heat-Moon recounting details from his trek across the United States and back again, first from down south, then from up north. Fragments of prose, small chapters being the rule. Fragments of style, him alternating between Walt Whitman and Walter Cronkite in singing the land and then reporting on it. And fragments of people, those he meets and those he finds inside himself, the latter being an array of white and Indian ancestors who collectively make him something of the loyal outsider, expecting the worst in others yet quick to seek and report on their inner light.

"Blue Highways" casts a sometimes sad eye on the American experience, circa 1977, when Heat-Moon made his circuit. Some reviewers here call it dour, and it is in parts, but what struck me about the book again and again was the tensile strength of people Heat-Moon came across throughout the country.

"American history is parking lots," he is told. By staying off the main roads and traveling the byways, Heat-Moon tries to disprove this, and succeeds by discovering and documenting how our history lives on, in old people with surprisingly young ideas, poor people who are unreservedly generous, and a half-deranged hitchhiking evangelist who clues Heat-Moon on a vision of greater happiness through service to others.

It's only natural there was a gap of five years between the time Heat-Moon made his trip and the book's 1982 publication. The depth of detail offered here, of the ecospheres of everything from a Louisiana bayou to a New Mexican desert, and the rich, individualized histories of so many towns, suggest less a human narrator than a vacuum cleaner of knowledge unless one allows for the fact Heat-Moon buttressed up his initial notes with long supplemental research. But, oh, the majesty of the end result.

I really liked the glimpses Heat-Moon gives of himself, unhappily trying to shake off the end of an unstable marriage by pushing himself away from home, coming to doubt time and again the wisdom of his rash action. But, after much soul-searching and a few blind alleys, he comes to find solace in the people he meets.

"Some people sit around and wait for the world to poke them," notes an old Maryland woman. "Well, you have to keep the challenges coming on. Make them up if necessary."

The reader finds something, too, a realization America still can renew the human spirit, by reminding us, in the beauty of her land, the freedom of her ways, and the endurance of her people, that life while not easy offers great things in the littlest moments.

The denseness of Heat-Moon's prose almost demands repeat readings, but the richness and variety of his style amply rewards them. "Blue Highways" is an American journey worth taking again and again.

I've read a lot of travel and "road" books over the last two years, after having completed my own "cross country" road trip one summer... So not only do I have personal experience out there on this kind of trip, but I've read pretty extensively on the subject (fiction and non-fiction). And, this book came highly recommended (???) on here and I had heard about it several places, so I REALLY wanted to like it! But unfortunately, this book does NOT measure up to all the other "road" books and travelogues. I found myself skipping/skimming VERY quickly through many, many sections (especially many of the conversations and his own brooding). I found several interesting stories, road/place descriptions, and insights - but I only made it about 1/2 through this book until I just couldn't keep going anymore. I am a person who truly appreciates the road and good writing about the road, but this is not it. I couldn't put my finger on it, but some of the stories were just plain boring and some too long-winded... and except for a few notable conversations/people, I was not interested in the people he met... This "journey into America" does not measure up to other books in this category. I have no idea if the last half of the book is better than the first, maybe it is but I doubt it after reading some other reviews. I give it two stars for some interesting insights and descriptions but don't waste your time. Find some better road books.

The information about how to get from one end of Rt. 66 to the other is very detailed, but I would like to see more of the "why" that all of these places are considered historic. Also, I would like to see the milage/eta written somewhere for each state. I like that all eight of the maps are specific to each state, and it is broken down well in that respect.

Everything arrived as promised; it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I had hoped for a little more detail, especially in and around the Metro areas.

We just completed our trip from Flint MI via Amtrak to Los Angeles where we rented a car at the station, drove to Santa Monica Pier and began our odyssey on old Rte. 66 to Chicago. These maps were invaluable. We followed the road as true as we could with a couple of side trips and arrived in Chicago 11 days later. The maps, even though they were cartoonish, helped us around every right turn, bear left, etc. We would still be at Santa Monica Pier without them!

This is not a map! It's just a pencil drawing of the road, with the name of the towns. No cartographic data for the surrounding landscape - no topography, no elevations, no vegetation, nothing. And absolutely nothing in the description of the item before you buy it tells you that this is not a map.

These are maps of route 66 as it presently exists;however, they are not very helpful (lacking details) for someone taking the trip. Much better to buy ROUTE 66:EZ GUIDE FOR TRAVELORS by the same authors of the maps. I recently bought both and took the trip with my wife this month of October 2007. The maps just stayed in the glovebox. The book is head and shoulders above the maps.

We could not have followed route 66 without this book. Our vacation was absolutely wonderful and we stayed on the original route most of the way.

Lots of information on what to see an do along Route 66. Maps are a little hard to follow.

I am planning a Route 66 trip - back to the 50"s and 60"s.

Thanks for the book and the info in the book

Jayne

I purchased "Route 66: EZ66 Guide For Travelers, I think mainly because of the spiral binding which it advertized would be easy to lay open as one was driving the road. I would say that was a plus. I drove the road with my wife from Ash Fork, AZ to Barstow, CA. It was a lot of fun and the EZ66 Guide was integral to the trip. It had larger section maps of the journey and smaller detail maps of tricky stretches. It's narratives provided valuable background information about each town along the way and fun descriptions like the berm between Essex and Amboy Calif where travelers have left messages using rocks and bottles, and the shoe tree near Amboy. Since this book was written in 2005 and 'bra' tree has now appeared down the road from the shoe tree. Fun stuff. I highly recommend this book for anyone planning a trip down the Mother Road.

This book is awesome! The maps are at first difficult to understand but after flipping through a couple of them are actually exactly what you need. The information provided is excellent and points out things to not miss in every state. Look forward to using it on my Route 66 Journey.