We have been on a mission to get from Maryland to Los Angeles to pick up Prufrock on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023.
We picked the Interstate 70 route to get there. It’s fairly direct, and it allowed us to see friends along the way in Columbus and Denver. Our stopover on night three in Salina, Kansas put us pretty near the center of the country.
For years we have been tempted by the I-70 mileage sign that informed westbound drivers near the Patapsco River that Columbus was only 420 miles away, and St. Louis was 845 miles away. On this Prufrock Pickup journey, we hit both of those cities, as well as Denver (1,700 miles).
I love the story behind the sign. No one really starts in Baltimore and goes to Cove Fort. As it turns out, the sign is there because transportation officials wanted to test a new sign and font design for visibility, and lightheartedly chose a mileage chart that has long fueled a desire to hit the road in travelers like us. The great and tragically departed Baltimore Sun writer Rob Hiaasen captured that story here.
I used the sign as a guide a decade ago, when I was planning a trip to St. Louis to see the Red Sox play the Cardinals in the 2013 World Series. Let’s just get on I-70, I told a friend who is a Cardinals fan; we can get there in no time. We never made the trip. But we should have.
I am writing this post from Moab, Utah, which is close to the terminus of I-70. We will actually reach the very end; and then dip south through Las Vegas and into California.
We have loved each stop – but travelling at this pace has been disorienting.
We try to explore a bit of each town that we stop in either for a meal or an overnight, and gain a flavor of what makes it unique.
But walking through Moab today felt almost a week removed from Golden, Co. But in fact is was just yesterday that we were breakfasting in the shadow of the giant Coors brewery and strolling along the river.
We have two big driving days ahead, and then are ready to slow it down a bit. Hopefully soon, the days will feel like days.
