Looking For America
    The sixties is remembered (or at least portrayed) as this huge era of self discovery and expolration. Young people were busy trying to "find themselves" or they were off "looking for America." Why this should be a distinction of the sixties I can not say. For hundreds of years restless people have been pushing through teh frontiers of this continent, exploring, and adventuring. What may have made the sixties distinct was that there was so little actually to be discovered, and so few true adventures to be found.

    Their parents had gone off on similar journeys of discovery after the end of the second world war, but where their parents had discovered city streets, country vistas, small towns, and tiny villages, the new generation found only the Interstate. The Interstate is a great way to travel, but not such a good way to tour. Limited access means that you get off at the same place as everyone else, see the same things, eat at the same places, and buy the same souvenirs. Getting off of the Interstate is little comfort, though this would give you complete freedom of the open road, you find that there is nothing to do, and no place to go until you approach a freeway ramp, where all of the businesses are now clustered.

One generation (W.W.II)
next generation (60's, 70's boomers)
Road became a playground

    Really, since the start of things here, we have all been wanderers, and nomads. The travel lust has burned in our hearts since the first of us spent months getting here by boat from Europe.
getting away/dropping out
escape to the empty places
escape from the empty places to the big city