WE LOVE THE INTERSTATES!

We left Arroyo Grande where we have been hunkered down for the last 2 1/2 months and headed up to Berkeley this morning. We are spending the night at the Claremont Hotel which is a really lovely old hotel. We are splurging because for the next 10+ days we will be in Motel 8s afraid to use the towels.

We arrived in California back in January courtesy of Interstate 10 which we picked up in Jacksonville, Florida and rode all the way to Santa Monica, California. The same road the whole way. How is that possible I hear you ask and the answer is legislation signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower — the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

The 10 is fascinating -- in parts it is the widest freeway in the United States (a section in Houston reaches up to 26 lanes), and in at least one part (also in Texas), it is the fastest route in the United states, with legal speed limits reaching 80 mph.

Interstate Lore: The following interstates cross the United States horizontally - the 10, 40, the 70, the 80 and the 90. I have been on all but the 90 - Well wait a minute, that's not true. The 90 runs through Massachusetts and is known as the Mass Turnpike but it is the same 90 that starts in Seattle and runs along northern United State to Boston! that brings up my next piece of interstate lore: parts of roads can be given warm and fuzzy names. For example, until very late in life, I thought Interstate 10 was only the Santa Monica Freeway. There are many examples of these major highways given warm and fuzzy names by the areas they run through.

Back to I-90, which is the road we will ride back into Massachusetts, after a brief flirtation with the I-80. I-90 is the longest interstate in the United States at 3099 miles. And we will begin to crack that nut tomorrow, April 1st as we head off to Nevada, and that's no fooling!
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