On the occasion of my 66th post, and being a big road buff, I want to know what the most gorgeous drives folks have ever been on are. I have three:
Route 89A through Central Arizona, down through Oak Creek Canyon, then through Sedona and the Verde Valley. Oak Creek is an incredible canyon drive, very rustic and green, with water falling through the canyon over the black and red rock. Sedona is indescribably beautiful, as too many people have found out, alas.
Highway 560 between Princeville and Ke’e, Kauai, HI: Round a bend, there’s a beach. Round another bend, there’s a taro valley. Go over some incredibly old river bridges, round another bend, see more beaches. It’s a string of gorgeous blue water beaches from one end to another.
Route 66 from Barstow, CA to Seligman, AZ: My namesake road. Not traditionally beautiful, but beautiful in an otherworldly way. This part of the Mother Road goes through two lava fields with old volcanoes near Amboy. If you hit it in spring, you can see the ocotillos in bloom between Needles and Yucca, then go through some incredibly rugged canyonland around Oatman, AZ.
Proof that the desert is an amazing place, something you won’t get on the sterile interstates.
As far as “most boring roads”, I nominate Florida’s Turnpike. The whole thing. (At least I-95 has varying surroundings. The Turnpike just goes through swampland that looks exactly the same from beginning to end.)
Highway 1/101 from central California up into Washington. Simply amazing views of the California coast, Redwood forests, the Sonoma valley, the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s even better when you get into Oregon the coastline is breathtaking and rugged.
The Alcan (Alaska-Canada highway) alternates between being awe inspiring and boring as hell. The few hours of the drive outside of Anchorage (technically the Glenn highway not the Alcan but whatever) are awesome, it’s a gorgeous winding road through the mountians. Then around Glennallen it get’s flat and boring for a while. IIRC it gets interesting around Tok and stays good until you’ve been in the Yukon for a few hours, then it’s boring agian until you start getting into Southern B.C. Wow. There’s some great scenery there, the road goes through several tunnels, right into the mountains in a section called, I think, Devils Pass or * Hells Pass* or maybe gate. Well you get the idea, it’s amazing and rugged and cool.
The Taylor/Top of the World Highway, also connecting Alaska and Cananda it’s the road to Dawson City, Yukon is another really interesting trip. Actually it’s worth the drive just so you can say you’ve been to Chicken, Alaska*.
Again you have amazing forests and mountain ranges to drive through, plus abandoned mining equipment you an stop and play with along the way. The American side of the road is a poorly maintained dirt one, washboarded and potholed to hell, as soon as you enter Canada though the road is wonderfully surfaced with something called chip seal, which apparently is perfect for cold climates and requires less maintainance than either dirt or asphalt. Naturually the Alaska DOT refuses to consider using it.
Upstate New York is pretty awesome too, very pastoral.
I’ll second ** mojave66 and Quonks** critisism of I-5 and the FL Turnpike, respectively. Those are two of the most uninspiring roads I’ve ever driven on.
*There’s all of 20 people that live there now. The most popular items in the giftshop have a chick hatching from it’s egg with a caption that reads “I got laid in Chicken Alaska!” I bought the mousepad.
I’ve got two very bad drives for ya, then. The absolute worst drive I’ve ever done was I-75/I-16 from Atlanta to Savannah. It’s about a six hour drive and, two hours in, you pass the well-known, bustling burg of Macon. And then it’s four hours of straight interstate through rolling farmland. With nothing. NOTHING! There are off-ramps that don’t appear to go anywhere. I stopped at the first gas station I saw, just because I was worried about my car running out of gas, and that was the last thing I saw until we hit the city of Savannah itself. No outskirts, even! It was a brutal drive. The only place (the ONLY place) to get out and stretch a bit would’ve been the shoulder.
And then I-65/I-85 between Atlanta and Mobile, AL. Ugh, nothing is less inspiring than the boring, rolling hills of Alabama, capped only by the hundreds of country radio stations. I actually felt kinda sorry for the Union soldiers that had to march around that area. And it was even boringer then!
The Old Frankfort Pike that runs between Frankfort and Lexington, Kentucky, is an incredible stretch of road. The beauty of the horse farms with miles and miles of white and black fences is breathtaking. Rolling hills and pasture and ancient trees and stone walls – I could just drive back and forth on it over and over.
For a slightly shorter drive - Highway 99 from Vancouver to Lilloet (BC, Canada) is amzing. The road is plagued by horrible SUV drivers until you get to Whistler, but after that it’s one of the best sports car highways in the country. The scenery past Pemberton is amazing - heck, it’s amazing the whole way. This is also a favourite road for motor bikers. Lots of cool twists and turns.
The coastal route up California’s Pacific coast and on through Oregon and into Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The high points and insanely beautiful bridges wipe any memory of the boring bits.
All the way down the spine of Baja California. The maddening stretches of desert are broken by some of the most beautiful arid highland and coastal scenery you will ever see.
