Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost knew what he was talking about when we wrote that famous poem about the person who treated himself to a little imagination in his travels. There were no Interstate Highways in 1920 but I think he would have shunned them if he traveled today. In fact, he might have enjoyed traveling with my wife and me. We try our best to make return trips take slightly different routes than the way out and we often take side trips or out-of-the-way routes when we have a distance to travel by road. We certainly don't reach our destination any sooner than anyone else but we get there somewhat richer for the trip itself. As Frost said: it makes all the difference. These are a few examples of the charms that are waiting there for anyone who wants to take a little extra time for himself or herself.

We find ourselves driving from Northern Arizona to Los Angeles quite often and it can be a long boring drive if one takes the usual run down I-17 to I-10. But there are choices. We have left I-10 in Arizona and detoured up through Parker, AZ and crossed the Colorado River to Earp, CA. Yes, it was named for Wyatt Earp. We knew that Earp was bounded on the West by a major road that would take us back down to I-10 so we simply left the paved route and took a random dirt road of good quality and began to series of turns in the desert. As long as we kept to a generally westerly direction, we knew that we would not get lost and we enjoyed passing rural dwellings and lovely desert vistas. As a bonus we got a great feeling of reward when we crossed onto the road that would take us back to I-10 and continue our drive to LA. The entire detour added two hours to the drive but it gave us a feeling of adventure that we enjoyed the rest of the day. Now we have a story we can fondly tell about an otherwise boring drive.

The drive from central Arizona to Las Vegas It is a five hour trip if you use I-40 as most people do. But we don't. Remember the days and the stories about Old Route 66? Well, you can still get your kicks on Rt.66. We leave I-40 at Seligman and drive on the old 66 road through towns that have stopped moving. We pass through Truxton, Valentine, and Hackberry. We also keep a topographic map open and follow the landforms as we go. Once we arrived in Kingman and decided to extend the nostalgia tour and drive the very old 66 route through Oatman and Goldroad which were stops for the Dustbowl refugees before crossing the huge California desert. It was definitely the long way to go to Las Vegas but we simply reveled in the feel of a time long gone and we loved the geology show that the area put on. By the way, you can still see "Burma Shave" signs on old 66. What you cannot find is traffic and stop lights.

This past year we drove from Connecticut to Arizona. We would not have dreamed of making it a straight-line trip so we drove South to Pensacola, FL and turned West. Our route took us through a small part of Alabama which we could have simply ignored. But we saw a small sign for "Turtle Point Science Center". My wife has a fondness for turtles so we changed direction and drove until we found the place. It turned out to be a nature preserve with a wonderful little trail that we walked. We spent two hours there and came away completely charmed. But that center was not advertised on any Interstate and we would have missed it if we had not chosen to drive on so-called "back-roads".

Sometimes we do the same thing when we are simply driving across a large city. We have enjoyed many lovely and unusual places and neighborhoods that way. It doesn't need to be a major trip to give yourself a little excitement. Mr. Robert Frost - we salute you.