Foreward

It was on a particularly flat and dull stretch of United States Highway 6 east of Bowling Green, Ohio when I conceived the idea. We were on our way back from Cleveland, having escaped there during a particularly hot Memorial Day weekend. My wife, who is often my travel companion on these sort of random jaunts of mine, spends quite a bit of the drive sleeping, leaving me to my music, my view of the landscape, and my thoughts. The sun was sinking, but still high enough in the extended summer evening, and I had the two-lane road virtually to myself. A travel book about Highway 6 came into my mind. "Why not? Everyone writes Route 66 books, and I could spend my life telling people why that road sucks. Route 6 deserves the same recognition, if not more. The 6 is just begging to be written about."
Later that night, at a bar in Downtown Bowling Green, I told her the idea. At least the idea of traveling the entire length of US 6. This was not too crazy an idea for me. In the summers of 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011, I took several months off from working and spent the time driving around North America. So a full drive of the length of US 6 would actually be a little low for my typical mileage. And I had already been on roughly 60% of the route, so I already knew the terrain well enough and had a starting point. Plus, I knew a number of people along the way. She took it as she normally takes my travel ideas: concerns of financial stability (never my concern) and how this would fit in to other plans.
Time was discussed. I said "two months," knowing how I drove, how I spent my time, and how I strove to doddle around in a place, eager to soak it up, based on my previous extended road trips. I would do what I always did: drive, listen to music, take pictures, and talk to people. Why not put a little additional time in and actually write while I did it all?
Every place has a story and, when you visit a place, you not only have the opportunity to learn that story, but also to create a new one of your own. Americans love travel, but they love to talk about travel even more. In my late 20's as I ventured out into the country, I discovered the most common element between people was that they all wanted to travel. I would tell people what I was doing and they would say something like, "I wish I could do that." I took that as a point that I was doing something right, so I kept doing it. The best part of traveling though was finding places that I ended up loving. As it so happens, a number of those places are along US 6. Great Basin National Park; Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Imperial, Nebraska; Omaha, Nebraska; Cleveland, Ohio.