Who is the road-a-holic?

Wyoming Highway 374, a former Lincoln Highway alignment, is a pleasant two-lane highway in Sweetwater County.
Gregory R.C. Hasman Photo

"On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk -- times neither day nor night -- the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself." - William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways

In the 1980s, William Least Heat-Moon had enough.

"With a nearly desperate sense of isolation and a growing suspicion that I lived in an alien land, I took to the open road in search of places where change did not mean ruin and where time and men and deeds connected," he wrote.

I felt the same way about Brooklyn, New York, where I lived my first 24 years. I enjoyed being from there (I will always be proud of where I come from), but I felt something was awaiting me. In 2006, I moved to Houston, Texas, at which point I began driving down two-lane highways ranging from U.S. Highway 61 in Mississippi to New Mexico Highway 104 between Las Vegas and Tucumcari, New Mexico. In 2012, I moved to Denton to attend graduate school at the University of North Texas. In between studying and work I traveled down more two-lane roads including U.S. 75 in north-central Texas and Oklahoma, and U.S. 380 in West Texas.

Three years later, I moved to Wyoming and discovered more roads such as Wyoming Highway 220 outside of Casper and Wyoming Highway 214 in Carpenter.

Over the course of the past 13 years, I have learned that two-lane highways are a constant adventure. From filling stations with torn souls to neon motel signs attempting to attract business, the open will always be filled with the pitfalls and possibilities.

An abandoned filling station sits by the Texas/New Mexico line.
Gregory R.C. Hasman Photo

In October 2018, I began looking for a new angle, so I decided to start taking photos of the two-lane more intimately.

U.S. Highway 93 between Wells and Jackpot, Nevada.
Gregory R.C. Hasman Photo

Most may wonder why the hay would I do some form of tomfoolery. Well, it is important to not only drive on the road itself, but see what it looks like through a lens. Months or years down the road I could show people what I have experienced.

Living in Wyoming in the winter poses challenges to when to take a drive down a two-lane highway, but I will take a drive down Interstate 80 (yes, I know, it is not a two-lane road) to Salt Lake City and then fly to Southern California. From there, I will take a trip down memory two-lanes for five days from March 15-19. Who knows what I will discover on Route 66 or other two-lane highways, and that is what I love about traveling, there is always something new to see or experience.

The bottom line is this: The open road will always be my refuge, my place of worship, a place where I can escape and find something new about American or local histories, and just as importantly, learn more about myself.