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other thoughts

Rest stops

[Today’s run:  1 mile with dog]

 

On our recent trip out to Colorado we took a new route.  We went up through Jonesboro, AR, through Springfield, MO, up to near Kansas City, across Kansas to Colorado.  In the past we usually went to Little Rock, AR then Oklahoma City and then north into Kansas.

Anyway, This picture is of a rest stop in Kansas along Interstate 70.

I am old enough to vaguely remember when a long vacation involved mostly two lane roads.  And if you needed to stop you pretty much had to rely on gas stations, restaurants and drug stores along the way. When the interstate highway system came in they made it more like a tollway in that you  did not have to get off the road except when you really wanted to.  Gas stations and restaurants sprang up at major exits, and they added these “Rest Area” stops along the way.

Rest Areas are just a place to park and usually a set of bathrooms.  And a lot of them have picnic tables.  Some even have grill-things so you could cook up some food if you had charcoal or wood to burn.  I have rarely seen people use the picnic facilities.  Some even fancier ones are “welcome centers” where you can get tourist information about the state you are driving through, frequently you can get a free roadmap of the state.

The architecture of the Rest Areas is interesting.  This one in Kansas is kind of western/industrial style.  The roof is a shed-style which allows high windows on the north side to illuminate the bathroom areas.  I expect they save a lot on electricity that way.  Usually they are built on a concrete slab and the fixtures are somewhat crude, aiming toward indestructable.