Not A Hilton …
When I lived near the US50/I-70 corridor (anywhere from San Jose to Denver) and had to travel to East US when not in a rush, I’d try to avoid the interstates where feasible which usually meant taking US34 across Nebraska or US36 across Kansas.
About 50 miles east of the Colorado line in Atwood Kansas is this funky little motel. I’ve not been by in a number of years – US36 is far off my path now I live in Idaho – but it was a pleasant and inexpensive place to stay during those times I was caught in a Kansas snowstorm.
It’s still in business.
Two lane highways, my favorite way to travel. You really don’t see the country from the Interstates. A few places I enjoyed: Lemmon, SD, Ely, Nevada, Lebam, Washington, Silver Lake, Oregon.
I like Ely … but you better bring your money with you if you want to live there. I imagine the other places you mention might be the same way. I passed through Silver Lake (a Lakeview to Eugene trip) once but it didn’t make a lasting impression. Never been to the other two.
During my childhood my mother drove us home (Cleveland) every year, or every other year–mostly in time for Christmas. We left LA and Drove to cleveland mostly on the original Hwy 66. You could say i grew up on those backroads. DH on the other hand loves to “get there!”. One time we were driving home to MT from Lubbock Tx. He fell asleep in the back seat and I felt the need to try a back road so I skirted off to the right. Somewhere outside of Albuquerque I took a right turn on a secondary road going north.
After and hour or two my dear stepdaughter and I came to the end of that road. We were really out there on a very secondary road (maybe tertiary) when I stopped the car. We could either go right or left but we definitely could not go forward. In front of us across our little road was a very large steel fence and a sign that said ‘Stay out–governmet’. DH had woken up when the car stopped. Suddenly he sat up in the back seat and asked “where the hell are we?”. I did not have an answer so he continued. “I may be naieve as hell, but I sure in the hell know when I am staring at a GD missile Silo!” He was uttering those words while pushing his way out of the back seat of a two door Saab on a very isolated road. Geez louise–he gets so fussy!
🙂
Last year I helped a friend move from here, Portlandia, to a town in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. You could also accurately say “the middle of the USA”. He, his brother and I drove out to the marker for the geographical middle of the USA, which is not 20 miles from his new home, and I joked to him that if the Chinese pushed the red button he’d probably be within the blast radius. Anyhow, after a few days he and I took US 36 from his new home town to Denver, where he dropped me off. We passed through Atwood.
I don’t remember Atwood by name, but I do remember we stopped at a diner for brunch which might have been “My Place”, currently closed, in Atwood.