by Chris Barrus
Come for the Giant locations, stay for the east-coast-art-meets-Texas collision. The CLUI’s report on Marfa covers everything in detail.
The Hotel Paisano is pretty swoonworthy.
The border patrol blimp (a.k.a. “tethered aerostat radar system“) west of town on US-90 is kinda unsettling to drive up on in the middle of the night.
Not shown: a HUGE golden eagle snacking on an antelope carcass on the shoulder of US-380 and the stretch of road cleanup sponsored by the “Ted Nugent Young Sportsmen.” Note to self: keep the camera on the passenger seat.
France traditionally celebrates the new year by eating pancakes which may just be the best cultural tradition ever. The only thing I could add is “why stop at new years?”
Anyway, happy new year folks!
“We’ve got provisions and lots of beer. The keyword is survival on the new frontier…”
The Moscow-Vladivostok Highway has barely been open a month and already folks are building a road to the South Pole. Opening date: 2006
After conquering the Dalton Highway and the Pan-American Highway you might be ready for the Moscow-Vladivostok Highway.
President Vladimir Putin opened a stretch of highway in Russia’s Far East that will make it possible for the first time to drive by road across the sprawling nation — starting in Europe and ending in Asia. Russian officials are hoping the 6,214-mile Moscow to Vladivostok trek will open a window to the East and the ever-expanding Chinese market. The linchpin Chita-to-Khabarovsk link, named after the frozen Amur River that it crosses, connects some of the world’s most inaccessible regions. The planned route had been on the drawing books since 1966, but for almost two decades, little more than 22 miles were built each year. After the decision to speed up construction of the 1,345-mile Amur highway, Russia’s government road body pumped 26 percent of all its available funding into the project. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development also provided a $25 million loan. Engineers and construction crews worked around the clock, completing on average half a mile every 24 hours.
The Denver Post reports on the renumbering of U.S. Highway 666. It might be only a number, but it apparently scares off tourists, drivers, and economic development. More to the point:
It’s a pretty involved process, and such requests are pretty rare,” says Richard Reynolds, director for Region 5 of the Colorado Department of Transportation. “The reason I’d like to change it that people steal the highway signs out there like crazy.”
Using the photograph from the article for now. Somewhere buried in a box is a picture of me and the old Pontiac on a stretch of US-666 in Arizona.
The world’s most dangerous highway is now a big-draw tourist attraction.
Onlookers inched to the edge of the road and peered 600 feet down into the misty jungle where a shattered bus and its victims lay.
A rope was flung down. Some 50 men pulled and then fell silent when the corpse of an Indian woman rose from the clouds, her clothes bloodied and torn. They stared as rescue workers laid her on the muddy ground with a tropical fern over her face.
Then came a strange click-clacking sound. Swooping down the road came a group of tourists in bright red cycling suits, riding modern mountain bikes and offering an incongruous sight on “el Camino de la Muerte” – the Highway of Death.