Weekend Driver San Diego

On opposite ends of the country, there are some great remanants of the original roads. I was facinated with the remaining brick stretch of US 90 when I visited Milton, Fla. a couple of years ago. The brick pavement is preserved next to the current US 90 alignment for several miles. As rare as it is to find any road artifacts these days, this long stretch of brick pavement is truly remarkable. Found a web site that shows photos: Florida @ SouthEastRoads.com. Then there's US 80 through the Imperial Valley in California. Large portions of the original concrete road, which ran west of the plank road through the dunes, are visible next to what's now called the Evan Hewes Highway. Hard to believe how narrow these roads are... even in the '20s one car would have to pull off the highway to let the other pass.

Luv In-And-Out. Still family owned, no franchises, so that's why the expansion has been limited. The "first drive through" got me looking around. In-and-Out's web site only claims to be the first in California (1948), while Wikipedia, that always-reliable source (?), says it was invented at Red's Giant Hamburgs on Route 66 in Springfield, MO. Our (San Diego) own local chain that grew into a monster, Jack-In-The-Box, started with drive throughs in '51. Always curious about the drive throughs.

Hi, Steve. Thanks for sharing news about my story. By the way, the Union-Tribune left out the web links listing in the newspaper story and I received several e-mails from readers looking for your web site. I've passed along your web address to them; hope they made it to your excellent site, www.americanroads.us. Jack

For those interested in touring or reading more about old U.S. 80 in California, I've done almost the entire length for my column in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Check out the page at: http://www.weekenddriver.com/roadtrip/find...ndus80home.html where I have a drive through the section from the Desert View Tower to Sunrise Highway. I also have links to the to the other stories I've done for the newspaper and information on my book, which includes drive on old U.S. 80. I've included a photo of the old concrete road near Jacumba. See you on the road! Jack