US50 - Washington DC to San Francisco in 13 days

DAYS 1 -3

Flew into Dulles and, after a bout of the usual boneheaded, arrogant incompetence from immigration officials, headed West.

Stayed in Wingate Inn in Winchester, VA, the apple capital of the US apparently. Lots of apple-related things. Nice little town. Hotel not so great. On the way through rural West Virginia, we stopped off at the charming Cool Springs Park, owned by E Harlan Castle, and a general store/machinery graveyard. Absolutely fascinating. Especially the Udder Butter. The drive through liquor store a few miles previously was interesting too.

Stopped off for lunch at Salem for lunch - good, solid food but have forgotten the name of the place, sorry. Detour to Philippi to see the 285ft covered wooden bridge. Drove in lovely late afternoon light through farmland headed towards Chillicothe, OH, and the Green House B&B, a thoroughly lovely establishment run by Tom and Dee Shoemaker. The town was quiet - it was Mothering Sunday - and there were no decent downtown restaurants open so we headed out to the chain restaurants where we had a fairly miserable meal in Bob Evans served by and even more miserable waitress.

The Green House B&B made up for it - a really nice place in a perfect little town [although it would probably describe itself as a 'city'].

Off in the morning towards the Ohio River scenic byway. Really lovely drive. Stopped off at Madison, Indiana. We could live here. Really special town, with a vaguely bohemian feel and a thriving downtown. [I later e-mail the local newspaper's editor asking if he has any positions available - the rude beggar doesn't even acknowledge my correspondence] Head off back towards US-50 through beautiful farm roads. Rejoin US-50 at Seymour. Pleasant rolling farmland all the way.

We stay in Lawrenceville, Illinois at Cloud 9 B&B. Really nice room, very pleasant host, Elaine, but bizarre breakfast. Our host claimed she wanted to cook us a breakfast that reminded us of England but the resultant concoction would perhaps only remind us of Alice in Wonderland. A cinnamon-flavoured giant Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages, peaches and squirty cream. Truly odd but very memorable, if not for all the right reasons.

MORE TO COME SOON

Thanks for the report, Paolo. It's always good to see ourselves through another's eyes. Although I must say, I have no idea what "Mothering Sunday" is. Mother's Day is next week, so I don't think that's what you ran into. I must say that I tend to agree wholeheartedly with a few of your basic observations:

West Virginia and southern Ohio and Indiana are lovely places to drive through and the people are endearing.

Chain restaurants are my food of last resort when I'm on the road. My venue of choice is a downtown diner in a 'city' of 3000-5000 people.

Bed & Breakfasts are a great way to stay in order to meet the locals and experience something (even if "memorable") that you never would otherwise.

Look forward to more of your observations.

AZBuck

That would be tough to take first thing in the morning? How was this concoction? It was sweet of her to try, anyway.

I'm trying to figure out what Mothering Sunday is myself.

I'm looking forward to your next installment. Sounds like you had a fun trip.

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Originally Posted by Paolo99

We were headed for Lawrenceville, Illinois, which turned out to be a slightly down-at-heel town with a Mexican restaurant selling gallons of margarita for about $1. We overindulge and end up with some locals in a bar drinking to the imminent incarceration of one of our fellow revellers' brothers. I am asked to say a few words in tribute to a convicted felon who I have never met. Surreal.

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Yep, sounds like a real adventure -- thanks for the news!

Mark

So far it sounds like you had an interesting time to say the least.

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A cinnamon-flavoured giant Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages, peaches and squirty cream. Truly odd but very memorable, if not for all the right reasons.

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Oh my. I guess that was memorable. Did you actually eat it? If so, you're a much better sport than I would have been.

Laura

After waking up in Lawrenceville with swollen right hand - don't ask me, it was a long evening - and enjoying our breakfast we set off at 11.30am. Terribly late by our standards but the circumstances were mitigating.

After reading that Missouri was dull we decided to head straight for Council Grove, Kansas. That meant a journey of 500 or so miles and using interstates. We drove for 3 hours on I-70, but after driving through St Louis [nice arch but wow does most of it look run down, from the interstate at least] I couldn't bear being on the interstate [everyone was driving so aggressively] so we ducked off and headed into Missouri's heartland. It was an enchanting drive. Ok, so it's not exactly Utah but it is most certainly a green and pleasant land.

Except for the monumentally unpleasant establishment that was Tanzannio's, a restaurant/club plumb in the middle of nowhere, not a million miles from Jefferson City. We were hungry so needed to stop but.....
It was an underground bunker crammed full of stuffed animals that stunk to high heaven. The owner, a rabidly enthusiastic hunter, stopped to chat with us while we ate our unimpressive food, and dropped enough hints for us to realise that he probably thought giving women and non-white Americans the right to vote was something of a retrograde step in the development of American society. We left sharpish and did not leave a tip.

After that encounter we spent an hour or two driving down through central Missouri until we reached Jefferson City, a nice enough community despite it being more or less bereft of downtown hotels. Finally found the Capital Plaza and were also lucky enough to spot a stealth bomber gliding a mile or so. Booked an executive suite and gave in to our monstrous hangovers.

Good breakfast at Capital Plaza - not our usual kind of establishment but it was a decent hotel - before setting off at 10am.
Tried to get gain admittance to the B2 airbase at Whiteman, Knob Noster, but you have to be sponsored by someone from the airbase
US-50 from Jefferson City to Kansas City is undeniably dull. Our guidebook recommended a fried chicken place called Stroud's which we eventually found but it had ceased trading some months earlier.

Instead we headed downtown to Gates BBQ. Enjoyed very messy but absolutely delicious food. Then to my most eagerly anticipated part of the trip. Kansas.

The drive from KC to Council Grove was all that I had hoped. There's something about the wide open pastoral spaces that bring out the Wordsworth in me. Before we reached Council Grove we passed through an equally pretty town, Burlingame.

Booked into the honeymoon suite of the Cottage House Hotel - simple but really excellent - and headed out to the oldest restaurant west of the Mississippi, Hays House. I had some great chicken while my girlfriend enjoyed "the best chilli I've ever had." Little walk around Council Grove before bed.

Next day we set off early for Cottonwood Falls, the town that features heavily in William Least Heat Moon's Prairyerth, his follow-up to Blue Highways, the book that got me so interested in road trips in the first place (Bill Bryson's Lost Continent played its part too). A really stunning little town but the Reuben sandwich at the Emma Chase Cafe was vastly overpriced. Temperature already in 90s.

Head west across rolling prairie that I find unaccountably beautiful and mesmerising. Stop in Kinsley - halfway between New York and San Francisco - to photogrph big train engine.

At Ingalls we encounter cattle Glastonbury - hundreds of thousands of smelly cows in vast feed yards. The stench is catastrophic. The land becomes even flatter. Apparently the US-50 here in winter is often closed due to snowdrifts. Difficult to believe now when the temperature is 98.

We find Sunnylands B&B in Garden City, a nice enough little town. We'd hoped to stay downtown in the Windsor Hotel but it's closed. Such a shame. We encounter literally dozens of defunct downtown hotels on this trip. Is there nothing that can be done? This is heritage being p*****d away.
The B&B is really nice, however, well decorated and comfy.

MORE TO COME SOON

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Originally Posted by lhuff

So far it sounds like you had an interesting time to say the least.



Oh my. I guess that was memorable. Did you actually eat it? If so, you're a much better sport than I would have been.

Laura

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I not only ate mine but my girlfriend's too. She had gone green at the sight of the concoction and I felt a little guilty that our host had gone to so much trouble. I took one for the team.

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Originally Posted by Paolo99

I took one for the team.

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Gosh, that description makes my tummy ache....

Mark

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hundreds of thousands of smelly cows in vast feed yards

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Eeww. I've run into those out west a few times. Almost put me off of meat. Almost. I am from the Deep South after all.

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were also lucky enough to spot a stealth bomber gliding a mile or so.

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This is why I love to read other people's field reports. They are awed by things that are common place to me and that I have forgotten are really incredible sights no matter how many times you see them. I've lived along the flight path of Barksdale Air Force Base for most of my life. I think it's the only base that still has the B-52s. But, seeing them and other aircraft on such a consitent basis makes one almost blase. Thanks for reminding me to look up more often.

Laura

That yorkshire pud thing sounded shocking - well done for stomaching two of them! I hope no one ever subjects me to that!!

Laura may not be impressed with the aircraft, but I was! You don't see so many of them in Essex, eh? Mind you, I guess I know what she means, I think I was the only person in the world who hated Concorde. Noisy flaming thing. It used to come over four times a day and I couldn't hear myself think!

Keep up the good work with the story, makes me want to get out there again.

I've never heard the Concorde, but the B-52s make enough of a racket for me. It especially gets noisey when they're heading out for a mission. My entire house will shake and they just seem to keep coming. Try waking up to that at 2:00 am. You start having nightmares of planes accidentally dropping bombs in your backyard.

I'm lucky though, that I was born after the sonic booms. I remember going to my grandmother's house as a kid and all of her pottery and glassware was glued down to the shelves and much of it was cracked from the sonic booms. I can't even fathom that noise.

Laura

Another extraordinary breakfast. This time it was pancakes with tinned strawberries and sausage. Seriously. Fred, the owner, sits down to visit with us. He asks us about the "terrible fog you always get over in London". We ask him how the Cowardly Lion is. Fred and his wife Kathy are very nice.

My girlfriend, Donna, insists on taking their picture, something she's done all along the way. Kathy disappears to apply some make up. For 30 mins.

As we're so close to Holcomb and as Donna has just read Capote's In Cold Blood we decided to visit the town. It seems kind of sad but maybe that was just me projecting.

We have lunch at a Mexican in Lakin before embarking on a detour of the blue highways of Kansas. It's just totally flat and quiet - the only landmarks are grain elevators. I am stupidly happy with all this flatness. Temperature around 98. Even the air is warm at 60mph.

Finally head into Colorado. US-50 a bit dull now but when we finally hit the Rockies the temperature plummets from 93 to 70 in about 10 minutes. Remarkable.

We reach Salida at 7.45pm to be met by Steve "Mountain Man" Office and his wife Tammy at their homely B&B, Thomas House, just shy of downtown. Our room, the Princeton Suite, is the size of a small apartment.

We head out to 1st Street Cafe where tiny Donna orders huge plates of food. We also polish off a litre of fantastic margarita [spotting the trend yet?] before making for the Victoria Tavern. We decide not to make a night of it as we're both still feeling the effects of the Lawrenceville lunacy [and I don't mean the Yorkshire pudding]. Bed.

Breakfast the next morning is french toast and syrup. Steve and Tammy tell us to take the West Elk Loop on the way to Grand Junction.
Donna gets out the camera. Steve removes a small dog from his beard and proclaims himself ready to be snapped.

We reach Monarch Pass and hour or two later. It's the Continental Divide. West of the divide people vote for Bush and East of the divide they think he's too liberal [sorry, political joke].

I persuade Donna to take the cable car to the top. She agrees finally, although not without some coercion. Once up the cable car [$7 return, bargain hunters!], Donna is fine, taking her usual 345 pictures of the same rivet or safety sign from a multiplicity of angles.

Up top it's fantastic and not too cold which is just as well as I'm wearing my lederhosen again. Donna getting hungry. You don't want Donna getting hungry. She may weigh about 100lbs but she packs a punch.

Finally get lunch at Gunnison. Donna eats waitress, then potato skins, ranch burger, and finally table.

Turn off at Sapinero for loop. It's beautiful but very long. We drive past Joe Cocker's house. It's not very impressive.

Grand Junction proves to be a real find. Tree-lined and, amazingly, art-lined the main street is a gem.

Our downtown Hampton Inn is pretty good and we have a great dinner at the Rendez-Vous French restaurant. The food is fantastic and the wine is even better. We sit outside with some of the staff who are having a birthday party. A really nice evening. And not a margarita in sight.

Tomorrow we head for Utah. We're excited....

TBC

Three recent UK-bred field report writers and all are a hoot to read (UKCraig, Vambo25 and you).

Thanks,

Mark

Up at 8am and a wander round Grand Junction. What a really nice town.
However, I discover that I've lost my power supply to my Powerbook. Duh, no more in-room internet research and booking of rooms. Can we find a replacement? Can we heck. Donna hits me upside the head so we head to the Main Street Cafe for the worst breakfast of the trip. Truly awful in every way.

We then head for the nearby Colorado National Monument which is pretty impressive. Donna takes lots of pictures. Lots.

Then it's off to the I-70 for a spot of speed. 75mph speed limit! Thank the god of roads. It's one of the enduring mysteries of US road trips for me - the ridiculously low speed limits. I've only ever been stopped twice for speeding in my life - both times in America, once in Idaho and once in Montana. Both times my English accent and apologetic simperings saved the day and the fine.

Anyway, there we are rattling along at 85 when, kaboom, it happens. We're heading for Red Cliffs Lodge near Moab and Donna suggests an obscure-looking turn-off. I question Donna's map-reading. All hell breaks loose. Suffice to say the explosion means that we miss Cisco ghost town and that Donna fluffs a great chance to shoot a vast freight train at a crossing.

It calms down quickly when I admit my error. The route is fantastic - typical southwestern Utah with huge red rock edifices in wide open spaces. So wide are the spaces, in fact, that we pass the Fisher Valley Farm which has a 13-mile driveway with a mailbox at the end. 13 miles! Incroyable!

We reach the Lodge, a little too soon as we were enjoying the drive so much. But our room overlooks the Colorado River which runs about 5 yards away from our terrace. We celebrate by opening a bottle of wine. This proves to be a mistake later.

Dinner is served on the terrace of the lodge. The view is truly wonderful. We get excited and tuck into more wine which is just as well as the food is pretty awful. We toddle off to bed a little worse for wear.

The next day is spent reading and lounging around the pool, recovering from our excesses. Poor dinner again.

The next day we check out and make for Moab for breakfast - we can't face any more food at the Lodge, great view or not. Two plates of eggs Benedict later we're off to the Arches National Park. Maybe it's me but I find it a huge disappointment. Too few holes and arches for my liking.

Drive north to the I-70. More 75mph speed limits and a really great drive. I didn't realise interstate driving could be so pleasurable but then this is Utah.

Finally get on to US-50 heading towards Nevada. Oh. My. God. What a road. This kind of road is exactly why I love these trips. Surely the US-50 from Utah into Nevada is every driver's dream. We stop off at Sevier Lake and walk onto the dry, salt-encrusted surface. There's no sound or sign of life in any direction. Just wonderful. Donna takes pictures. I'm in heaven.

Then it gets even better. The last 19-mile stretch from Utah into Nevada is straight like an arrow - you can see the entire 19 miles. The light is that soft, saturated, diffused light that's unique to early evening. I drive at 50mph, not wanting the stretch to end and knowing that we gain an hour once we get to the border. I can't tell you how happy I was for that 25 minutes or so.

We reach Ely at 8.30pm and check into the bizarre Victorian-era Hotel Nevada. Anyone who's been there knows just what a strange place this is but we were equally charmed and bemused. What is it with the gambling bug? There were fruit machines EVERYWHERE. Well everywhere there weren't stuffed bears and antelopes, that is. Our room is the Lyndon B Johnson suite. We head down to the casino/bar. They have 99c margaritas. Uh-oh.....

MORE TO COME SOON...

I like the Hotel Nevada -- and you have to try the steaks next door at the Jailhouse Cafe. More info here!

Mark

We awake several times during the night in the Hotel Nevada. There are dogs howling and drunks yelling. And that's just in our room.
It's not a particularly restful night, especially as an inebriated local informed us that our room was haunted by a con artist. Didn't bother me but Donna's quite thrifty - she is an Essex girl after all.

After our restless night we're glad that the hotel restaurant is serving excellent FC [full cholesterol] breakfasts. My food comes first so Donna starts licking her arm for salt. Finally her roast cow arrives. She even uses a knife and fork. While re-filling our cups with coffee the waitress asks us where we're from. Donna looks up impatiently from gnawing at one of the cow's hind legs. I tell the waitress, "England." Then it happens. One of those moments you hear about but never believe will happen to you.

The waitress responds thus: "Cool, what language do you speak over there?"
We both look at each other. Donna drops the leg in shock. Is she joking?
From the vaguely inquisitive look on her face it appears not.
"Er, English," I reply.
"Wow, really? I thought you spoke English real good."
Better than you do, I thought, perhaps a little uncharitably.

We wander around Ely for half an hour or so taking pictures of the murals. It's a nice little town. On our way West Donna spots the "US-50 - The Loneliest Highway" sign and takes perhaps 4,567 frames.

Then begins another fantastic drive which earns the US-50 the loneliest road sobriquet. This part of Nevada is beautiful and huge and full of nothing. Absolutely astounding.

Then we get to Eureka. Before we embarked on this road trip we'd earmarked one hotel that we really wanted to stay in - the Jackson House Hotel in Eureka. When we'd called to reserve a room we got the Best Western down the road telling us that it was shut. I was, as we Cockneys say, gutted. It's owned by Jeff Bartley, the same man who owns the Best Western. I tried to see Jeff to have a chat but he was in Alaska. Likely story.

Anyway, we crept in to see the place as there were some very friendly guys performing some maintenance. It's a terrific old-style hotel, with real class. The bar itself must be 100 years old. We find out it's for lease. We discuss leasing it and setting it up as an upscale getaway boutique hotel. Then we remember. I'm a writer and Donna's a photographer. Neither of us has any knowledge of the hospitality business whatsoever. It was a brief but delightful dream.

We continue West. Suddenly the road is carpeted with weird brown insects. What the hell are they? Kamikaze crickets? Mile after mile of them just sitting in the road. We stop off at some petroglyphs although I've forgotten where. Out of the car all is still and calm. We are utterly alone. It's spinetingling. Then Donna's stomach rumbles. Uh-oh. Better get a move on.

We find food at either Austin or Cold Springs, I really can't remember which [the town was on a hill]. We find the loneliest phone which is adjacent to the buggy-infested Sand Mountain and the dried up Carson Lake and airbase. Donna has a brief reverie which includes Tom Cruise and a fighter jet. We spend some time just watching the pilots horse around in the sky, as though they were just riding bikes.

We head toward Lake Tahoe and find lodging by the lake. Bed.

The highlight of the next day is Lake Tahoe and me joining the Lake Tahoe Bear League. I'm the only English member. Still am actually. The drive down from Lake Tahoe becomes increasingly traffic-ridden and I find myself yearning for Nevada again. I think it might be my favourite American state. Well, it's certainly in the top two with Montana. The drive is now boring. We're nearing San Francisco and the end of our 3,400 mile road-trip. We feel sad and vow to do another next year. We're totally hooked.

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The waitress responds thus: "Cool, what language do you speak over there?"
We both look at each other. Donna drops the leg in shock. Is she joking?
From the vaguely inquisitive look on her face it appears not.
"Er, English," I reply.
"Wow, really? I thought you spoke English real good."
Better than you do, I thought, perhaps a little uncharitably

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I'm guessing the looks on y'alls faces were similar to the ones on mine and my sister's faces when asked about speaking French at home. What?! Now Craig (UKCraig) can testify that I have a very redneck/Southern accent. How the heck they thought I could switch to French from that accent when at home, I don't know. Oh, this was in Upstate New York, not even a foreign country.

I'm almost sad that these daily installments are almost over. I've enjoyed logging in everyday and reading. I hope that you have a large backlog of trip tales to regale us with.

Laura

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Originally Posted by lhuff

I'm guessing the looks on y'alls faces were similar to the ones on mine and my sister's faces when asked about speaking French at home. What?! Now Craig (UKCraig) can testify that I have a very redneck/Southern accent. How the heck they thought I could switch to French from that accent when at home, I don't know. Oh, this was in Upstate New York, not even a foreign country.

I'm almost sad that these daily installments are almost over. I've enjoyed logging in everyday and reading. I hope that you have a large backlog of trip tales to regale us with.

Laura

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Thanks for your kind words, Laura. I've undertaken a few trips [mostly solo] but only two on which I kept a daily diary [you won't be surprised to learn that the ultra-efficient Donna is to thank for that]. The other one was a totally random road trip from Austin TX, to San Antonio, TX, via Nebraska.
I might have a go at writing that up this week.

And we'll be heading your way at the start of June. I've been to New Orleans three times and found it rather dispiriting but I've never spent much time in Cajun country, despite cooking a mean jambalaya. I'll have to remedy that in June.

New Orleans is a great city to visit but I didn't like living there at all. Long story, but the pollution finally got to me so badly that a doctor told me the only cure was to move. That was my final straw. I was back in Shreveport within a month. There was a good amount of homesickness involved as well, but that was the final straw.

I actually live in the northern part of the state where Louisiana meets Texas and Arkansas. But, I've lived in New Orleans and done extensive travelling within the whole state. I'll be glad to answer any questions that you have.

Laura

So, do you live anywhere near Lake Providence?

Lake Providence is in East Louisiana near the Mississippi border. It's actually pretty close to where my Dad is from. I've been to it and Delhi (pronounced with a long I, not like the city in India) and Oak Grove lots of times for family stuff.

Watcha want to know?

Poverty Point is near there in Epps, LA and is the site of the scene that left my sister and I in the middle of a field staring at cows because the state park had failed to mow the trails around the mounds properly. The NPS is supposed to be helping with the site now, so maybe it's better.

Laura

Just read something recently that said it was the poorest town in the US. I have a kind of morbid fascination with it. What's it like?

You'll find lots of rural towns in Louisiana vying for that position. Lake Providence looks like a lot of other small dying towns in Louisiana. There's little to no industry, some people still trying to eak out a living with a small family cotton farm, etc. There's really nothing to see. You could probably also visit Goodwill, Oak Grove, Epps, etc and see the same sights. I know they have a larger crime problem in Lake Providence than the towns where I have relatives, but I don't know enough about the town to tell you the root causes. It's always been a very poor section of the country, though.

I could say a lot more, but I'd really get in trouble with RTA's Good Neighbor policy. :)

Laura

What's RTA's Good Neighbour policy?

Paolo99.

From the terms and conditions of this Forum....
The Forum is moderated by seven members of the roadtrip community and their primary job is to serve as your host and guide while you are using the Forum. They are all knowledgeable and experienced roadtrippers with millions of miles of road expertise under their collective tires. We strive to be a source of information and ideas about that nature and philosophy of road tripping and also provide itinerary suggestions. We enforce a set of “good neighbor” rules to ensure that everyone’s experience on the Forum is welcoming and helpful.

One of the hallmarks of this "Good Neighbor Code of Behavior" is that we do not embrace generalizations that are not based upon personal experiences***. In particular, we work towards the notion that there are no boring places anywhere. To be clear, we do not disrespect anyone's home town or regional area on this Forum. Likewise, negative generalizations about a group of people from one region encountered on a roadtrip are not acceptable. The Moderators on this Forum will actively enforce this version of the "Golden Rule." Elsewhere on the Web, it easy to find plenty of alternative forums where courtesy and respect are not has highly valued and those members who choose not to "play nice" will be given the opportunity to go elsewhere.

***What is always fair game and encouraged are "field reports" where members share examples of real life roadtrips. This forum has several such reports sharing some of the very real, and sometimes unpleasant aspects of roadtripping (bedbugs, breakdowns, traveler incompatibilities, etc.)****

Thanks for your continued understanding of this policy.

Mark

I'm just confused as to how Laura thought she'd be transgressing.

Paolo99,
great report there, thanks. As I've posted yesterday on a different thread, I'm planning to do a pretty similar trip this July with my girlfriend. Since both books we've bought on Amazon (Blue Highways and Jamie Jensen's Road Trip USA Cross Country Adventure on America's Two-Lane Highways) haven't arrived yet (we're in Brazil so that usually takes some time), our basic idea for the trip is basically US 50 from Washington to Sacramento and then San Francisco.

Were guides useful in finding interesting detours and pointing dull segments of the road? What would you suggest? I'm afraid Jamie Jensen's guide is outdated, am I right?

On a different note and trying not to sound full of prejudice or break or motivate any violations of the Good Neighbour rule, some of your, er, political remarks got me worried. Being brazilian and ethnically dark skinned latino (my girlfriend is white), how likely is it to face racial discomfort along the way? Is it common to stumble upon people on the far-right side of the political spectrum? I don't mean David Duke or anything, just that creepy black people and women shouldn't vote thing.

The only unpleasant chap we ran into was the owner of that awful restaurant and as that wasn't even on the US50 the chances of you stumbling upon it - even by accident - are about 1 in a billion. Even if you do the smell of carcasses will have you running out the door.
We didn't run into any other bother at all. In fact, over 7 road trips covering about 15,000 miles, I've only once had a cross word with a local and that was in New Orleans where some redneck took a dislike to my fancy English accent.
Otherwise, it's an incredibly hospitable - if sometimes insular - country.
I'm pretty sure there's been an updated edition of Jensen's book which was published just after we did US50. The old one we used was pretty out-of-date but still useful and interesting and definitely worth taking with you.
As for Blue Highways, well, what can I say?
As for finding places of interest, restaurants and accommodation we used a mixture of Jamie Jensen, Rough Guide USA and the internet. I found having a laptop with us was really useful as it pointed us to B&Bs etc that we wouldn't have otherwise found. Staying in B&Bs is a really good way to get a feel for an area and a culture, much more so than staying in motels or hotels. We found Tripadvisor also useful as a research tool in larger conurbations.
Regardless, you'll have a fantastic time and I think you're doing it in the right direction [east to west]. I've done 7 trips and I think US50 was my favourite - you get to see such a great cross-section of the US and it's bookended with two of the most interesting cities.
Anyway, if you need anything else don't hesitate to ask.
P

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Originally Posted by Paolo99

Anyway, if you need anything else don't hesitate to ask.
P

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Well, I do. (:

How much did you spend on the whole trip? Is cash easily accessible throughout the way (Visa ATMs)? Are Credit Cards ubiquitous or are the hotels, diners and bars in the small towns still cash only?

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Originally Posted by Paolo99

DAYS 1 -3
Off in the morning towards the Ohio River scenic byway. Really lovely drive. Stopped off at Madison, Indiana. We could live here. Really special town, with a vaguely bohemian feel and a thriving downtown. [I later e-mail the local newspaper's editor asking if he has any positions available - the rude beggar doesn't even acknowledge my correspondence] Head off back towards US-50 through beautiful farm roads. Rejoin US-50 at Seymour. Pleasant rolling farmland all the way.

We were headed for Lawrenceville, Illinois, which turned out to be a slightly down-at-heel town with a Mexican restaurant selling gallons of margarita for about $1. We overindulge and end up with some locals in a bar drinking to the imminent incarceration of one of our fellow revellers' brothers. I am asked to say a few words in tribute to a convicted felon who I have never met. Surreal.

MORE TO COME SOON

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That Madison is one of the neatest towns I've ever been in. I've also driven the length of US-50 in Illinois. Didn't notice that place with the cheap margaritas, unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by jonig4

Well, I do. (:

How much did you spend on the whole trip? Is cash easily accessible throughout the way (Visa ATMs)? Are Credit Cards ubiquitous or are the hotels, diners and bars in the small towns still cash only?

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We paid cash in B&Bs but there were ATMS in most towns and credit cards were widely accepted. Access to cash proved to be no problem at all.
As for how much we spent, well, too much is the answer but not as much as we could have. We tend not to worry too much about budgeting when we're away. Sorry I couldn't be more precise.
P

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Originally Posted by RoadDog

That Madison is one of the neatest towns I've ever been in. I've also driven the length of US-50 in Illinois. Didn't notice that place with the cheap margaritas, unfortunately.

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Yeah, I really quite miss Madison, which is a bit odd. And as for missing the margaritas place, I wish we'd missed it too!