Get Your Desert Kicks on U.S. 95!

 You know, I never thought I would ever say it, but in many ways, the desert has become home for me. After all, I've been living in Las Vegas for 23 years come this August. I really did not think I would last this long here. 

Well, Las Vegas itself it not my center of being. No, my desert center of being is actually 100 miles from here, in a town called Laughlin on the Colorado River, just across from Bullhead City,Arizona. Vickie and I go there often and when I'm there, I feel some sense of inner peace, moreso since last summer when I had a bit of a breakthrough in my mental health.

The reason I bring all this crap up (I hear your toes tapping, how rude!) is because there is a U.S. highway that for most of its Canada to Mexico length is a desert road. That highway is U.S. 95, and at nowhere is 95 more at home than in good ol Nevada.

Some stats first:

Mileage in each state:

Arizona: 123

California: 130

Nevada: 647

Oregon: 123

Idaho: 538

Major Cities

Yuma

Henderson

Las Vegas

Is anyone seeing why this is the desert highway of desert highways? Of the 647 miles in Nevada, I'd guess that maybe 40 miles are in a town or city setting. 95 is a freeway from Boulder City to a few miles west of Indian Springs. Currently, the new Interstate 11 shares road with 95 from Boulder City to the Mt. Charleston exit, about 42 miles. The Las Vegas metro area is THE ONLY metro area that 95 services. 

All right, let's get this tour started!

Arizona

U.S. 95 begins in San Luis at the Mexican border, then travels across the farrmlands of the lower Colorado River up to Yuma where it crosses Interstate 8. Yuma is sizeable enough to be considered a sort of major town for 95, even though it does not get freeway status. From Yuma, 95 enjoys some good empty and flat desert to Quartzite where it joins Interstate 10 into California...the road pavement equivalent of hitching a ride. 

Interestingly enough, north of I 10 is where Arizona route 95 begins, traveling close to the Colorado River's eastern 'shores', servicing Parker Dam, Lake Havasu City, and the Colorado River Valley's unique comminuty, running almost 30 miles from just north of Needles to the northern end of Bullhead City.

California

In contrast to the flatness of Arizona, 95 in California takes on more curves and hills. From Interstate 10 in Blythe, 95 winds along the Colorado River's western region, passing a few desert resorts along the way, traveling 86 miles to Needles, where it meets some remnants of old Route 66.

A short note about Needles: it is a desert town in all respects, from old and low buildings to smokers  with missing teeth and a faraway look in their eyes. I say this because many people envision Las Vegas as the desert. Las Vegas is is giant desert OASIS, much like Phoenix.

In Needles, 95 hooks up with Interstate 40 (as does classic 66 albeit silently) for a 10 mile stretch before going on its own...well, 66 does follow for a few miles before going off on its own decades old journey. After many miles of less than pleasant roadway (CALTRANS apparently does not think of 95 as a priority), 95 enters...

Nevada

It also gets better quality road and a divided highway status for a while. Just 2 miles inside of Nevada is the turnoff for Nevada 163, a nice divided highway taking travelers the 19 miles to Laughlin...I know this highway well!

After that turnoff, 95 gets a 75mph status for about 19 miles except for the tiny town of Cal-Nev-Ari. After a mile long 25mph speed trap called Searchlight, 95 resumes its expressway status for 35 miles, passing several solar farms,  to meet Interstate 11 and U.S. 93 just west of Boulder City...and here the Las Vegas 'fun' begins. After crossing Railroad Pass, travelers get a wide shot of the Las Vegas Strip even though it is about 20 miles away. It is a freeway for sure, but it is often congested in many places. After intersecting Interstate 15, 95 continues into the western Vegas burbs, going west and then curving north and then later northwest after Rancho Drive merges with 95. After passing through the Centennial and Skye Canyon areas and providing access to Mt. Charleston via NV 157 (this was once an at-grade turnoff but is now a full freeway exit), the 95 freeway sheds I 11 (for now) and re-entered the real desert, taking an often westbound  direction for several miles. 

Passing Indian Springs and Creech AFB, 95 soon enters Nevada's largest county (Nye) and is again reduced to 2 lanes for the first time since leaving California. Soon, 95 enters the Amargosa Valley and provides a few access points to Death Valley on its way to Beatty, a town that is over 100 miles from Las Vegas, and the next town of note is Tonopah, which is 93 miles from Beatty! That is how it is in the desert, so travelers need to plan their gas stops strategicallh.

In Tonopah, U.S. 95 meets U.S. 6 and they travel together for 40 miles until 95 gets tired of 6's whining and turns off to head to Hawthorne, an oddly-placed hamlet that was once home to a piece of Cold War ammunition plant history...ah those were the days!

After Hawthorne, 95 traveles along Walker Lake, a beautiful but oddly placed waterway. After Walker Lake, there is a turnoff for 95A, which provides access to Yerington before heading north to meet I 80 in Fernley. 95 continues north for 39 miles to Fallon, the current home of Top Gun (is Kenny Loggins in your head?). From there, 95 is back in the desert for several miles before meeting Interstate 80 and joining it to Winnemuca, where 95 heads back north 73 miles to McDermitt, a typical Nevada state line town with some gaming. 

Oregon

95 is all high desert through its 1-county (Malheur) march through Oregon with little to no services for 123 miles. As with almost all desert roads, there is some nice scenery here if your mind is in it. Otherwise, feel grateful that Oregon raised its speed limit from 55 to 70 a few years ago. There are some small services in Jordan Valley, otherwise a nice quiet and hopefully clear desert drive.

Idaho

At well over 500 miles, Idaho contains a good chunk of U.S. 95. The funny thing is that 95 doesn't go through anything big in terms of towns. It gives mileage for Boise but other roads go there. Near Marsing, 95 enters  agricultural regions served by the Snake River. Near Parma, 95 is joined by U.S> 20 and 26 for a few miles before they exit into Oregon. 95 then intersect sI 84 and U.S. 30 in Payette.

The next city that 95 shows mileage for is Lewiston, which is well over 200 miles away...and like Boise, 95 doesn't go into Lewiston, either. Same with Moscow. 95 does get a good-sized town at last in Coeur D'alene, but still skirts the center of Sandpoint but does get to cross thorugh Bonner's Ferry before ending at the Canadian Border in a forested region.

In fact, as 95 gets futher north in Idaho, the deserts give way to lush greenery and mountainous areas and beautiful lakes. This can't be the same 95 that had absolutely no shade in Arizona! Oh, but yes it is...it is almost like 95 got put into a swank retirement home after years of hard labor.

U.S. 95 has a little of everything, though very little city. However, that is part of its charm, like other highways in the country...built to serve the smaller towns  and the vast nothingness that lies between them.

Oh Where Oh Where Did California's U.S. Highways Go?

 Once upon a time, there developed a state called California.

At first, all California had going for it was a primitive ponzi scheme involving gold.

Then came the motion picture industry, which was thankfully silent at first until some wiseacre learned how to put sound in the films, and then came awards for these movies, bringing with them speeches more annoying than what they said in their films!

And then came a guy called Disney who had a dream, a dream to reshape old fairy tales into really bizarre meet-cutes and also give us a highly negative view of stepmoms that only Pornhub could reverse decades later. Disney had another vision: to open affordable theme parks that would charge its customers a mortgage payment for admission after he died.

Sometime between the gold scam and the movies, the U.S. Numbered Highway System grew to abundance in California, taking travelers to parts of the state they had never seen...and taking them back once they saw Fresno!

Oh yes, California at one time had 17 U.S. highways taking them through the state and allowing access to other states. Let's take a glance at them all because I am still on summer break, I have all of my teacher license renewal credits finished, plus I'm a geek and that was long established!

U.S. 6: stretching all the way from Massachusetts, 6 took travelers to the Sierra Nevadas, then wound south through vast empty desert into the Los Angeles Area, ending at Long Beach.

U.S. 40: From Atlantic City, New Jersey, 40 came in from Reno then crossed the Sierra Nevadas  and the Sacramento Valley to San Francisco.

U.S. 50: Coming all the way from Maryland, 50 passed south of Lake Tahoe, wound through the Sierra Nevadas into its foothills to Sacramento and then south to Stockton because apparently it had to show us an uglier presence than Fresno, then west to San Francisco.

U.S. 60/70: I have discussed these two before and 70 really did not have much of a presence of its own other than the Los Angeles area. Still, these two crossed the desert from Arizona, passed Palm Springs, and brought many Disney worshippers to him in droves.

U.S. 66: The Mother Road itself also crossed the desert from Arizona, passing Needles, Amboy, Ludlow, Barstow, Victorville, and then went through the Cajon Pass to enter the vast Los Angeles area, ending right at the beach practically.

U.S. 80: Also entering from Arizona, 80 crossed the southernmost deserts of the state before climbing and descending mountains to bring travelers to San Diego.

U.S. 91: U.S. 91 began in Long Beach, going north a bit before turning east to serve Riverside and San Bernardino and then hit the high desert on its way to Las Vegas. Not quite a border to border, 91 did end at the Canadian border in Montana.

U.S. 95: Another border to border highway, 95 skirted the eastern desert of California, staying close to the Colorado River without actually being in sight of it. It came in from Arizona and exited into Nevada.

U.S. 97: A fairly short highway coming in from Klamath Falls, Oregon, and ending in Weed...yeahhhh, Weed!

U.S. 99: This highway was a legend! Taking traveles from the Canadian border, it traveled south through western Washingon, Oregon, and all the way down through the heart and length of California, serving many of its major cities and providing access to others. At Los Angeles, it hooked up with 60 and 70 into the desert and went south to end at the Mexican border in Calexico...this highway is worth a study of its own...you know what is coming!

U.S. 101: Like 99, 101 is a true legend of a highway. Coming in from the coastal regions of Washington and Oregon, 101 was (and still is)  a beautiful road offering many ocean views in the northern portion of California. It also traversed forests and went right through the hearts of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego before ending at the Mexican border near Tijuana. Another worthy entry of its own!

And then we had some offshoots:

U.S. 395: A unique road in that it left California and re-entered....Nevada wanted partial custody because Reno and Carson City needed a nanny? 395 originated in downtown San Diego and went north to serve the Inland Empire towns of Riverside and San Bernardino before entering the high desert and the Sierra Nevadas. In the northern section, it provided access to more desert, mountains and valleys, along with Lassen and Modoc Forests before entering Oregon. Another unique thing about 395 was that it never crossed its "mother" 95.

U.S. 199: This was and is a fairly short road taking traveles from Crescent City, winding along the Smith River before entering Oregon.

U.S. 299: An often windy road in the mountains, 299 traveled from Arcata at U.S. 101 across to Alturas, ending at 395. 299 crossed its mother 99 in Redding.

U.S. 399: Starting in Ventura at 101, 399 traveled north to Ojai, crossed mountains, then wended through the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley before ending at its mother 99 just south of Bakersfield proper.

U.S. 466:From Morro Bay, 466 crossed the coastal range and traversed the San Joaquin Valley and then corssing more mountains before reaching the desert. At Barstow it met U.S. 91 (but barely missing its parent 66) and then headed northeast to Nevada.

That was a lot of highways! 

So what happened to them?

Two things were the culprit:

First, the new Interstate Highways were starting to be built in the late 1950s, and those newer freeways were often an improvemnt on the old 2-lane highways, particularly in winding mountain areas and urban areas.

Second, there was a highways renumbering act in 1964 which wiped away or shortened many of those 17 routes, making them part of the Interstate system or turning them into state routes.

In memoriam as of 1964 or some years thereafter:

U.S. 299 became CA 299.

U.S. 399 became CA 33 and CA 119.

U.S. 466 became CA 46 and CA 58.

U.S. 66 ceased to exist once Interstate 40 was completed. There is a CA 66 in San Bernardino and eastern Los Angeles Counties, but most of it is now nonexistent as a route.

U.S. 70 was already redundant for the most part and disappeared completely.

U.S. 60 stuck around until Interstate 10 was completed. There is a CA 60 freeway running form Beaumont to downtown Los Angeles as an alternate to 10.

U.S. 99 became CA 99, but was truncated to serving only the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys and their communities. A 2-lane highway at first, 99 is very much a freeway from Interstate 5 to Sacramento.

U.S. 80 became Interstate 8 along with other main streets of the San Diego area.

U.S. 40 disappeared after Interstate 80 was completed.

And then are there the survivors, though a few were highly truncated.

U.S. 395 actually stuck around into the 1970s in the San Diego area before Interstate 15 was extended to there, now it ends just south of Victorville at Interstate 15.

U.S. 6 is now just a 40 mile stub between the Nevada state line and Bishop where it ends at 395.

U.S. 97 is intact.

U.S. 199 is intact.

U.S. 50 west of Placerville was upgraded to a freeway to end just west of Sacramento at Interstate 80.

U.S. 101, although truncated to end at Interstate 5 in downtown Los Angeles, was gradually upgraded to a freeway in many parts, although still a 2 lane road in much of northern California as well as a city street (several streets in fact) in much of San Francisco.

Other states have lost some of their U.S. highways as well, but not to this degree. Oh well, California always has to be different...like me!

Highway System Part 2: The last of the 10s...or last 4 of 99,999 people's socials!

 Next year, our U.S. Numbered Highway System clebrates its 100th birthday!!!

Um, where's my invitation? There is a party, right?

Oh hell, I don't even get invited to Super Bowl parties just so I can overeat on windgs and chips.

Anyhoo...I last covered the first 5 multiples of 10 in terms of east-west highways, my favorite two being U.S. highways 20 and 50.

Today we will cover highways 60, 70, 80, and 90...2 of which I have seen in some form.

First up is...

U.S. Highway 60 has at its peak been a cost to coast highway...well, it DID at some point end in Los Angeles if not reaching the Pacific Ocean...that honor went to legendary U.S. 66.

Still, Los Angeles does touch the ocean, so it's a minor loophole. And U.S. 60 still holds a good amount of length across the country! Starting in Virginia Beach, Virginia, 60 travels across some coastal plain before entering the countryside and acting as quite an impressive if treacherous mountain highway. It stays near or shares road with Interstate 64 in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky all through Louisville, where I 64 heads into Indiana and 60 continues traversing Kentucky's length right to its western end, seeing much of rural America and seeing the route's longest piece at 489 miles, quite impressive!

From there, U.S. 60 has less than a mile in Illinois before suffering an allergic reaction and proceeding immediately to Missouri. This location is notable as it sees the end of the Ohio River where it empties into the Mississippi.

Once in Missouri, 60 alternates between two lane and four lane highway through the state's southern section, mostly in rural regions with the exception of Springfield. In Oklahoma,U.S. 60 is highly rural and stays for the most part a 2-lane highway. It sounds like my kind of road, actually! From Oklahoma, 60 heads into the Texas panhandle to enter the Amarillo area and then go in a southwesterly direction into New Mexico. In New Mexico, 60 goes through the remainder of the Great Plains and then into mountainous regions, sharing some roadway with Interstate 25. In Arizona, the mountainous theme continues right into the greater Phoenix area. Before that, 60 passes through Globe, where U.S. 70 has its western end. 

Through Phoenix and its burbs, 60 is a divided highway or flat out freeway, sharing road with I 10 and I 17., From Phoenix, 60 goes northwest as Grand Avenue all the way to Wickenburg, then turns west to cross the desert lands until its end at I 10 several miles east of the Colorado River.

Historically, U.S. 60 along with U.S. 70 continued together all the way across the desert in California, but separated once in Los Angeles's outer burbs.

Downtown-wise, 60 goes through Phoenix, Amarillo, Lexington,Kentucky, Richmond, Virginia, and many if Virginia's coastal communities.

I believe U.S. 60 is akin to U.S. 20 in that it passes through much of America's heartland without too many bypasses around towns.

U.S. 70 is also a once all-the-way-across route, though it kind of lost its identity in Arizona and California when it shared road with U.S. 60. It now goes from Atlantic,North Carolina to Glove- Arizona.

Like 60, it sees much of America's heartland in the southern regions. What can be said for U.S. 70 is that it goes a LONG length across many states, including North Carolina, Tennessee, and New Mexico, all three states having over 400 miles of this highway!

Its states include North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahome, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 70's major downtowns include Little Rock, Durham, and Raleigh. U.S. 70 also shares road space with many other Interstate highways, U.S. highways, and state highways. 

It seems like 70, judging from maps, has lost itself over the decades with a few exceptions, meaning it is like an old relative existing in the shadows of bigger and younger people. Before the era of the freeways, I bet 70 was as grand as them all, at least as far as Arizona.

U.S. 80 was among the greats, and through some areas it manages to stay alive, particularly in Arizona, even after being truncated all the way to  central Texas. 

Having spent some time (2 years) in southern California, I came to learn that U.S. 80 was an important road that had its western end in downtown San Diego. Much of U.S. 80 is accessible from downtown into the mountains and parts of the Imperial Valley. In Arizona, except for a large section between Yuma and Gila Bend that was largely subsumed by Interstate 8, U.S. 80 is mostly accessible. If one looks at a pre-Interstate map of Arizona, they can see the wild route that 80 took through the state, going north then south, then WAY south to the Mexican border before climbing north again.

Currently, the path of 80 in New Mexico is where Interstate 10 lies, and is so into Texas all the way past Van Horn, where Interstate 20 takes over the route. Pretty much every town along 20 has a business 20 where 80 once was. 

As of now, 80 exists officially starting in Dallas and continuing through Lousiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and finally Georgia where it ends on Tybee Island. It does have a lot of independent sections but, like 70, lies parallel to more modern Interstate highways.

Downtown-wise, 80 begins in downtown Dallas and goes right through Shreveport, Jackson,Mississippi, Montgomery,Alabama, and Macon and Savannah,Georgia.

To me, 80 is almost a close cousin to 66, representing a previous national culture that parts of which I wish we could go back to.

And finally we reach U.S. 90, which like U.S. 10, was never a coast to coast. route. In fact, its western end was fairly bland in Van Horn, Texas, where it met U.S. 80.

All that said, though, U.S. 90 is a road of the Deep South, serving many communities and cities in that part of the country. In many areas it does parallel Interstate 10 (whereas U.S. 10 became overhsadowed by Interstate 90), but is not insignificant enough to be terminated. 

Cutting across the vast emptiness of West Texas, U.S. 90 goes through the rest of the state (at 763 miles), then Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and a 409 mile stretch across Florida's east-west length.

Between Pensacola and New Orleans, 90 should be called the Gulf Highway as it lies quite close to the Gulf of...the name of your choice! Politically I don't give a crap, but a few hundred years doesn't get canceled on a personal whim.

Downtown-wise, 90 wins the prize! 

San Antonio

Houston

New Orleans

Jacksonville,Florida

I must confess, I have never been on any part of U.S. 90 that I am aware of. I've probably flown OVER it once or twice.

Incidentally, that image of the U.S. 90 sign is real: Florida colorized their U.S. highways in the 20th Century.

And with that, my look into the 10s is complete.

Next up is whatever I decide, but it will likely focus on some odd-numbered U.S. routes. I also plan to examine the gradual decline of the U.S. numbered highways in California.

We shall see.

Highway System part 1: the first 5 Tens

 In celebration of next year's 100th birthday of our highway system, I would first like to take a look at what I call the 10s, meaning all of the main east to west highways that we have. 

First of all, Bryan, WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT HIGHWAY SYSTEM?

Oh! Yeah, maybe I should provide some background on this.

Before 1926, we had no real national system of highways. Sure, we had a few highways in varying conditions depending on where you were. 

A perfect example of this is the Lincoln Highway, a generally ragtag connection of roads that was never completed as originally designed. If you look at some modern road maps, you will see an L designating a rough sketch of what the Lincoln Highway was, but the original New York to San Francisco route has long since been paved over, probably 3 or 4 times.

By the mid 1920s, there were enough automobiles on the road that a national and uniform system made sense. The general rule was that for east to west roads, the assigned numbers would be even, with the lowest number (2)being furthest north and the highest number (98)being furthest south. North to south highways were numbered odd, with the lowest number route (1) in the east while the highest number (101) was in the west.

This was an absolutely perfect system, right? Au contraire! Depending on where you were in the country, these highways could have tight and blind curves, as well as very steep mountain grades. Also, many of these roads served as the Main Street of many communities big or small, so the highways also later came to be riddled with stop signs and traffic signals.

Still, this new system was the standard pretty much into the mid 1960s, when the new interstate system of divided highways was showing some legs.

The U.S. highway system utilized a shield that held the route number. The shield design evolved over the years with some variation depending on the state. 

All right, are we straight? How about just a slight warp? Ok, back to where I was, the multiples of 10 in the U.S. Highway System.

Highway 10 had two unique qualities about it. First of all, it did not go from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it actually began in downtown Detroit. It ran up in a north-north-western direction until around Bay City, then cut west to Lake Michigan. From there, a ferry would take people acruss the lake and continue on U.S. 10 in Wisconsin, continuing to Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washingon, terminating in Seattle. 

Much of 10 was easy travel as far as Montana before it crossed the Rockies in western Montana and Idaho. It alos had to cross the Cascade range in western Washington.

As of now, U.S. 10 exists only between West Fargo and Bay City, having been replaced with Interstates 90 and 94.

This road also has a unique quality or two about it. Not only was it extended from its original terminus in Yellowstone National Park to Newport, Oregon, but within Yellowstone itself, it does not exist officially. Therefore, 20 with the exception of its Yellowstone break, goes from Boston to the Oregon coast, traveling across Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, a tiny corner of Montana, then Idaho and finally Oregon. U.S. 20 sees quite a variety of landscape, from the rolling hills of the northeast through the northern Appalachians, farmland, urban areas of Boston, Cleveland, and Boise, and a good amount of desert in Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. It is also the main streen of several smaller towns in many states.

A coast to coast highway like U.S. 20, U.S. 30 does NOT get broken up by a national park. Much of 30 between Pennsylvania and Wyoming is labeled on maps as the Lincoln Highway, though with its many freeway bypasses around towns, particularly in Pennsylvania and Ohio,  30 has long strayed from the Lincoln Highway as it was originally routed.

U.S. 30 begins in Atlantic City, New Jersey (Monopoly, anyone?), and goes across Jersey, the long length of Pennsylvania, 3 miles of West Virginia at its most northern tip, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, the long length of Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, ending in Astoria. In fact, it takes some extra length between POrtland and Astoria by following the westernmost portion of the Columbia River.

Unlike U.S. 20, 30 has undergone many freeway bypass realignments in order to avoid smaller towns, particularly in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, thereby taking away the rural and small town charm it once had, particularly going through Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Before the arrival of the PA Turnpike, U.S. 30 was considered the safer of two routes (the other being U.S. 22) crossing the Appalachian Mountains. In fact between the western Pittsburgh area and the Philadelphia area, the turnpike and 30 are never more than a half hour apart.

U.S. 30 sees the downtown areas of Boise, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Like 20, it sees many types of terrain on its course.

U.S. 40 actually shares an origin with U.S. 30, in that it begins in Atlantic City. From there it is a bit more southerly, crossing southern Jersey into skinny Delaware, then Maryland, Pennsylvania, a tiny bit of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and ending in Park City, Utah, just 30 miles short of Salt Lake City. U.S. 40 shares a good amount of pavement with Interstate 70 between Baltimore and the Rockies, though it maintains its own identity in that distance in many places. Near Idaho Springs, Colorado, 40 "breaks up" with 70 permanently to cut up into northern Colorado and northeastern Utah.

U.S. 40 has an asset (or disadvantage depending on your point of view) of going through many downtowns, such as Denver, Kansas CIty, St. Louis, Columbus, and Baltimore. It sees a good amount of mountainous terrain in the east and west along with desert, coastal plain, and farmlands of the midwest.

Like U.S. 10, 40 fell victim to the Interstate Highway System, but unlike 10, it lost less than a thousand miles. Interstate 80's completion made 40 obsolete through western Utah, Nevada, and California, where it ended in San Francisco.

And finally, we will tackle the ever so famous...

U.S. 50 is about as classy a highway as they come, quite frankly because it's often the road less traveled...but I'll get to that in a bit!

Like 40 and 10, 50 suffered some truncation, but only about 100 miles or so. Parts of it originally were part of the Lincoln Highway in the west, particularly between San Francisco and Ely, Nevada.

Its truncation happened in Sacramento, so 50 does not see the Pacific Ocean. 

Starting in Ocean City, Maryland, 50 crosses coastal plain to the Chesapeake Bay where it serves Annapolis via freeway and soon after, goes right through Washington,D.C. Actually, D.C. is about as downtown as 50 gets in terms of big cities. From there, it heads through the expensive burbs of Virginia before it gets into rural Virginia, then West Virginia, with a tiny slice of western Maryland, Crossing the Ohio, we get INTO Ohio, cutting through that state's southern rural parts, then into Indiana and Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.

Aside from D.C. downtown-wise, 50 sees Cincinnati and St. Louis. Apart from that, it sees a LOT of country, but maintains its own identity most of the way, key word is MOST!

Currently, between Grand Junction, Colorado and Salina, Utah, it shares a little over 200 miles of Interstate 70, going through some spectacular desert landscape. Before Interstate 70 was completed in Utah, 50 followed U.S. 6 from Green River to Spanish Fork, headed up to Salt Lake City, cut across with U.S. 40 to Wendover, then cut south to Ely, Nevada. Now, it goes from Salina to Scipio, follws Interstate 15 south to Holden ( a ghost town), then heads west to Delta to share road with U.S. 6 to Ely.

From Ely, Nevada to Fallon, Nevada, U.S. 50 is known as the Loneliest Road because there is not much for almost 300 miles. Most truck travel prefers Interstate 80 to the north, and the towns of Austin and Eureka are not known as travel destinations. It is a fascinating and often scenic combo of desert and mountain...as is most of Nevada in fact. 

West of Carson City, 50 does some climbing and dropping before it enters the Lake Tahoe area, offering many stunning views of the beautiful blue deep lake, then does some more mountain climbing in the Sierra Nevadas before it becomes a freeway to serve the greater Sacramento area and end at Interstate 80 in West Sacramento. In its pre-Interstate days, 50 cut south to Stockton, then went west again through the golden hills of Altamont before entering the vast east bay collection of cities before crossing the San Francisco Bay itself to end in the city.

Cliff Nelson

 And exit Cliff Nelson...a good 5 year run! He started as an aggressive assistant DA,heavily pushing for Winter Austen's guilty verdict. He mellowed out a bit after, liking Deborah Saxon but ended up just amking himself a pest. He was later forced by Logan to prosecute Draper and won, which was a bitter victory. Tiring of the thankless job of prosecuting, he sought a position with Mike Karr to practice civil law.

A golden opportunity came when Logan needed strong counsel to win custody of Jamey from Raven, unknowingly getting the key evidence to win from a nudie mag in Elliot Dorn's office. Ever the loudmouth still, he bragged that he knew who killed Elliot and was soon the victim of a stabbing (Henry Slesar considerd killing him off but changed his mind). After recovering, he was invited to join Draper as a partner in the law firm when Mike became the new D.A., often handling things himself as Draper was helping April piece together who the real father of Emily's baby was.

After Draper left for Europe, he was the lone lawyer in the firm for a short bit before agreeing to share office space with new and idealistic attorney Didi Bannister. . They proved to be a good team, Didi pumping fresh energy into Cliff while Cliff helped her to rein in her idealism when common sense was required. Wanting a date for the opening of the Whitney Theater's dance revue, Cliff impulsively asked ditzy waitress and aspiring actress Mitzi Martin to accompany him. After a rough start, they became quite a cute if silly couple. Mitzi soon found a brand new acting school led by Jim Dedrickson. Cliff joined and got some good acting strategies to hopefully use in court when he defended Gavin Wylie. When real killer Sky Whitney (really Jeff Brown) was proven to be the killer.

Cliff and Mitzi were excited to be part of Jim's theater group when Raven let the group use the Whitney Theater...that is until Raven found out that Gavin was part of it and she kicked them all out. She also had Cliff fired from one of his biggest clients because he wouldn't fake a will to make sure she got all of her husband's millions. Therefore it was not hard for Smiley Wilson to convince him to be part of a practical joke framing Raven for murder. It was all fun until Cliff saw that Smiley wanted to take things too far, and Smiley removed Cliff from the proceedings. Not long after, Jim panicked that some real harm could come to Raven so he spilled all to Mike Karr, putting Cliff as well as Calvin Stoner in legal trouble for their participation. Even after Jim rescued Raven from a crazed and murderous Smiley, things were still up in the air until the real Sky Whitney's identity was proven and Raven was too distracted to proceed with suing her tormentors.

Cliff soon assisted Didi in defending her brother Troy for murdering crooked cop Ted Loomis, though it was in self defense. Troy was acquitted when mobster Eddie Lorimer confessed to the police that Ted Loomis had conspired with mob henchman Joe Bulmer to kill Troy. Cliff was also consoling Mitzi after she was hit by a car driven by crazy and jealous Nora Fulton. Speaking of which, after Nora was killed in the WMON studio, Cliff and Didi represented Nicole Cavanaugh, who would not budge from her confession of murder despite growing evidence she was lying. Cliff also had to contend with Gunther Wagner, who had romantic designs on Mitzi. Cliff thought Gunther might have killed Nora and also in a moment of desperation accused Sky Whitney...but once again Cliff provided a key to solve the case and Sky Whitney had all the key players reenact Nora's murder to show that CEA double agent David Cameron had done it. A drunken Cliff in a celebratory moment proposed to Mitzi but took it back the next day. Mitzi ran away for time and Cliff decided to run her restaurant the Rock Garden, to disastrous results. Mitzi returned and, moved by Cliff's intentions and efforts, reconciled with him.

Bored with their old office, Cliff and Didi found new offices in the newly opened ISIS building. It was a dream at first until Didi started acting paranoid and irrational and violent. Seeing Alf Mayhew's body falling and then witnessing security chief Donald Hext switching suicide notes put Cliff in a dangerous position. After surviving a murder attempt via gas poisoning, Cliff went into hiding and then dared to invade the ISIS building at night, dodging Hext and Louis Van Dine's manhunt until he got himself locked in Van Dine's multimedia torture room. After weeks of losing his mind, a severely mentally wounded Cliff was rescued by Gunther when Gunther, Sky, Miles, and Derek raided the ISIS building and stopped Van Dine.

It took some intense therapy from Dr. Beth Correll, but Cliff finally began to show emotions again, having a breakthrough after laughing uncontrollably at Shellley Franklyn's selfish histrionics. After that, Cliff and Didi took on their paralegal Marty's grandfather's case of stolen burial grounds. It was a tough case as grandfather Standing Elk held many secrets that stymied Cliff and Didi. Sky and Raven pursued the case even after being fired by Standing Elk and found out the secrets on their own, and helping Cliff and Didi to win the case. Cliff had been offered a prestigious position in Capitol City and had been allowed to finish the Standing Elk case. He wanted Mitzi to join him, but she had grown a lot on her own and knew the two had no solid future together.

Cliff began as more or less a bulldog attorney, but soon evolved into a merely pushy and occasional goofball character who provided some comic relief to balance the drama.

Live From New York, It's A Dateless Saturday Night!

    Sometimes when I find a huge (over 500 pages) book, it looks daunting unless it's a dictionary. A few years ago, I read all 1400+ pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, and that was quite the task. 

   In this case, the book at my favorite thrift store was of a topic quite dear to me: Saturday Night Live. It was put together via a wide array of interviews of almost everyone creatively and corporately involved up to 2002.

   Just to lay down a little history, Saturday Night Live was not some all of a sudden brainstorm by creator Lorne Michaels. On the contrary...for those of you who never knew life in the 1900s, there was a late night talk show host named Johnny Carson, and he hosted the Tonight Show from 1962-92. The NBC network was running reruns of his show on the weekends and when Johnny found out in late 1974, he told them to knock it off by the summer of 1975. So NBC had the option of either returning that block of time (11:30pm to 1am) to local channels and lose that commercial profit OR come up with something to replace it.

   Incidentally, Johnny wanted reruns to play on weeknights so he could take more time off...he was getting famous for that already.

   After some creative talks and some really (in my mind) dumb ideas, Canadian Lorne Michaels along with future sports exec Dick Ebersol were put in charge of creating a 90 minute show. Lorne put together some talent from comedy and improvisation clubs, created a basic structure for his idea, and on October 11, 1975, NBC's Saturday Night debuted...and it lived happily ever after!

YEAH SURE!

Its first host was George Carlin, who was apparently quite high that night. He would appear 9 years later with shorter hair and minus the drug use. The show's original cast was Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. While they were featured all through the first several episodes, they were not really highlighted and shown individually in the opening until early 1976.

The breakout star of the show was Chevy Chase with his Weekend Update features where he was playing himself, along with portraying President Gerald Ford and other sketch characters. With his rising publicity, he decided to leave the show in the fall of 1976. Pretty quickly, the new focus was on Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi along with Gilda Radner. Jane Curtin took over Weekend Update, with Dan as co-anchor for a while. In the winter of 1977, Bill Murray joined the cast and after an unremarkable start, began to shine on his own.

This cast stayed pretty stable up to 1979, when Dan and John left to further their movie careers. Bill, Garrett, Jane, Gilda, and Laraine took it on their own the next season, with some help from Harry Shearer.

And then Lorne was ready for a break! So was the rest of the cast. Former producer Don Ebersol after the next disastrous season would rescue the show for 4 fairly good seasons...though some episodes lacked finesse.

I own the first season and have seen other episodes from those first 5 seasons via old-style video rentals, plus Nick at Nite used to air Best of Saturday Night in the late 80s, minus the music acts. 

Comedy Cental aired the 1980-91 years of the show in the early to mid 90s, so I caught most if not all of those years a couple of times. I'll break it down pretty simply...according to my well renowned (?) opinion.

1980-81- These shows are practically unwatchable. They hold almost no humor (a few chuckles at best). Eddie Murphy appears in a few pieces, and he is the definite highlight.

1981-82- More consistent laughs, but still a bit uneven, though I liked the Wild Wild West parody the best. Eddie Murphy is the big star here. I know Joe Piscopo got a lot of publicity, but he was also pretty dependent on Eddie's fame.

1982-84- Eddie and Joe are still the highlight while the other players (including Julia Louis Dreyfus). Pretty watchable 2 seasons.

1984-85-  This was a star-studded season with Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and Christopher Guest. A few holdouts from the previous 2 years were there but not highly featured. Eddie was gone and therefore Piscopo was as well. In my view, Short and Crystal ran away with this one.

And then lo and behold, Lorne Michaels rose out of the burial ground of lesser known works to make SNL magic again...it would not happen right away. Some of his assembled new cast would help make the show glorious again in time: Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, and Nora Dunn. Then there was his selected celeb group of Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr. and Joan Cusack, along with unknowns Danitra Vance, Damon Wayans, and Terry Sweeney. It was a pretty large group and much did not gel. I do remember this season having a few gems, though it was almost canceled.

1986-89: Dunn, Lovitz, and Miller return and are joined by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and Kevin Nealon. This was the season we were introduced to the wild impersonations that Cavey and Hartman could do. The show was magic once again, and consistently!

1989-90- The cast is joined by Mike Myers...excellent! Sadly...or not so sadly, Nora Dunn left in protest over Andrew Dice Clay hosting. From what I read, she was not missed. Jon Lovitz also left at the end of the season.

1990-91-The final season for Jan Hooks and Dennis Miller. Six glorious of years of Weekend Update were done.

1991-92- The final season for Victoria Jackson...and in my view, the last truly great year for some time. Adam Sandler, Tim Meadows, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Chris Farley also came aboard. This season was when I was at college at West Virginia University.

I caught a few episodes of the 1992-93 season, and there were a couple that were good, my favorite being when Harvey Keitel hosted. Other than that, it was mostly stupid...and I was about 20 during this season, still in my dumb comedy phase of life.

In fact, I do not remember watching the show at all until the early 2000s when Will Ferrell was imitating George W Bush so well! During most of the 90s, I was watching a lot of Beavis & Butthead. 

According to the book, the 1994-95 season was pretty abominable, but rose from the ashes pretty fast the following year.

Sadly I did not see much of the Jimmy Fallon-Tina Fey era, or the Amy Poehler era. Sad because I heard a lot of good things. I've caught some of Kenan Thompson, just a naturally funny guy.

Sadly we have lost some of our cast members: John Belushi in 1982, Gilda Radner in 1989, Chris Farley in 1997, Phil Hartman in 1998, Jan Hooks in 2014, Norm MacDonald in 2021, and announcer Don Pardo in 2014.

I truly believe that as long as Lorne Michaels is alive and able, Saturday Night Live will breathe. The book says much about him, both in praise and criticism, but both are what genius brings, sometimes one more than the other, part of doing something and doing it well. I salute him. 

One Scoop WIth All the Networks

    As I sit in front of the television seeing if anything interesting is on (which most days there is not), I am browsing through all these streaming services I subscribe to, a seemingly endless minefield of shows and movies that either I don't find promising or I once liked them and my mind moved on. 

   Does anyone else get this way? Well, let's put it this way: do you find Police Academy just as nonstop laughs as you did in 1984? Wait, I'm sorry, I totally forgot this is intended for people born in the second half of that ancient era called the 20th century...yes those years that begin with a 19! Sorry for the confusion!

   Wait, maybe I'm not so sorry! For what am I here to do besides educate and write complete sentences?

   Yes, young ones, you can always learn.

   Anyhow, back to those former classics...they were made for their time, be it comedy or action or drama. My DVD/BluRay bins are full of movies and TV show box sets that I love or once loved. Yes, I do have some of those Police Academy movies because sometimes I just need a cheap and easy laugh.

   Going back to those two little words in paragragh one...streaming services! Yes, I have gone from surfing TV channels to surfing streaming services. The only difference is that when you surfed TV channels, you were going from playing show to playing show. The streaming services just give you titles and maybe a picture...kind of like going into...check this out...VIDEO STORES! 

   There is so much choice now that you can almost get sick in the glut.

   If you are one of the few that tune in to the networks anymore, what is there? There's some drama for sure, some comedies that are less likely to contain a laugh track anymore (an improvement I admit), some elimination shows, talent shows, and revamps of classic game shows.

   There was actually a time when there was something known as the BIG 3: CBS, NBC, and ABC. These were the major commercial network providers of daily and nightly programming. If you're thinking WHAT ABOUT FOX?, that was a part time network when it started in late 1986 and wasn't a full nightly competitor until the 1990s. Even then, it stuck mainly to nighttime and offered no daytime soaps or game shows.

   You also had what were known as independent stations. These channels were actually favorites of kids as they played cartoons and older off-network series. For example: The Brady Bunch ran on ABC from 1969-74, then was syndicated to the independent stations in 1975, from where it enjoyed a few decades of endless reruns. The same went for many other color and black and white programs. However, those stations were not what people were generally watching at night.

   No, the BIG 3 held the majority of viewers during the "prime time" hours, which were mostly 8pm-11pm, although in the early days it began at 7:30pm.

   Here is a huge question: which network was the best? 

   There might have been network loyalists, but they were few and far between. Our family would certainly watch something on one network, then change channels to another one when a favorite was coming on. I think most of America was like this.

   And what does best mean when it comes to a network? Is it ratings? Quality? Maybe both?

   When it comes to overall quality, my opinion is that CBS held it together more consistently. I say this because not only was it a ratings powerhouse more than once, but the shows that held those ratings were of good quality. Plus, CBS knew something was in the air change-wise in 1971. This was when All in the Family arrived and the idea of social issues in sitcoms was a novelty. By the end of the 1970-71 season, all of CBS's rural-appeal and 60s stay-overs were terminated...and when you think about it, a lot of those shows were old BEFORE 1971. Some examples are Mayberry RFD, Green Acres, Hogan's Heroes, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw (but that continued in syndication to great Saturday night success), Lassie, and Family Affair. Was CBS perfect? No, they juggled a few good shows too many times around the schedule...WKRP in Cincinnati comes to mind. CBS also was the home to many a hit daytime and nighttime soap opera, and its crown game show jewel The Price is Right has been with us since 1972. They DID cancel The Edge of Night, but luckily another network picked that right up in 1975.

   Let's come to ABC. What I always remember about ABC was that it was trying to be cool in the minds of its viewers, and it catered to lots of whims. Batman was really what put ABC on the map in early 1966...the only problem was that it was its only prime time powerhouse that year and that show burnt out in 3 seasons. Skip forward to 1978 and ABC was a maniac! Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Charlie's Angels, Mork and Mindy, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island were the talk of the town. The 1980s leveled that field a bit when many of those shows ended...actually many of those shows overstayed the public welcome. That said, ABC knew how to overdo the glitz that was the 80s with Dynasty and Moonlighting.

   And then we come to NBC. Now, I have to be honest, I've come to be a bit jaded with NBC over time, based on what I've read. NBC will always have the famous peacock, even though they dropped their mascot from 1975-79. Some of their programming from the late 70s to early 80s were complete flops, others held on a season or two, and others, like Diff'rent Strokes, overstayed their welcome. They did manage to hold onto The Hollywood Squares for 14 years, a record for any celebrity game show. Plus, their super Thursday nights in the mid to late 1980s made them a draw, and those shows were good quality from 1984-88. Of course we have Days of our Lives, which has lasted since 1965. And then there is the 50 year old Saturday Night Live, which has been through many ups and downs. As long as Lorne Michaels is alive, so will that show. The reason I am a bit jaded toward NBC is in how they treat some of their talent. For example, sometime in the 90s, there was a clause in an SNL performer's contract that they could be pulled out to do a sitcom. Also, some of their owners canceled shows depsite high ratings just because they didn't like the show...Fred Silverman killing Hollywood Squares is a prime example.

   All that said, those 3 networks, no matter the shows' quality and ratings from season to season, were the main game in town from the 1950s to the early 2000s. The only alternatives were leaving the house, listening to music, or playing a family game. To me it is amazing those 3 are still around, and they might just outlast me, who knows?