"Life does not happen on the interstate."
Subtitled "a journey into
America". A
1982 book by
William Least Heat-Moon, about a long,
meandering cross-country
road trip through various
small towns and
off the beaten path parts of the
United States,
eliciting
stories from the
people, from the
land, and from himself. Heat-Moon deliberately
traveled, in his old
pickup truck, on
roads that were,
once upon a time, marked in
blue on
maps.
My Rand McNally has such roads marked red or gray, I think - two of the larger and more famous of these roads are Route 66 and Highway 61, but the unfamous ones are even cooler.