Want to see Small Town America, too!

Hi, I'm planning a trip from New Orleans to San Francisco and back and will be going through many cities in between. However, I'm a writer and am interested in cool stories and interesting people and want to stop in smaller towns along the way. If you know of any or how I could find about interesting towns around the big cities I'm going to, please let me know....I'll be hitting Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Vegas, LA, San Fran and Denver.....
thanks!
lisa

I think you should take a spin around Barbara and Bill Windsor's site. So far, they have visted 2000 small towns. I think their experiences will be a good reference for you.