Scenic Byway

There are hundreds of scenic byways across the United States. Becoming a scenic byway, however, does not happen overnight – the road or highway must meet one of six qualities: archeological, natural, historic, recreational, cultural or, lastly, scenic (seems like that should be standard). Today, we found one other qualifying quality: missed turn.

As Ice Cream Man, Sleepless and I attempted to return from our weekend trip, we somehow managed to miss our turn and ended up on a road none of us had ever traveled – Robert Frost and M. Scott Peck would be very proud.

“I believe we are heading West,” Ice Cream Man advised us. “How can you tell which direction we’re going?” Sleepless asked. “The sun,” he replied with great confidence. “You stood on that sundial at Mountain Village for like one minute and now you know all this?” I asked. “Yep,” Ice Cream Man confirmed. “We really are the lost people of Mountain Village,” Sleepless noted.

As we drove deep into the bowels of a gorgeous canyon, the only signs we saw read, “Scenic Byway.” 90 minutes later, as we exited the canyon, we saw a large camp of emergency response professionals, vehicles and equipment. “Regional Search and Rescue, you can stop looking, we’re here,” Ice Cream Man joked. We were ‘here,’ however, still had no idea where ‘here’ was. After figuring out where we were and where we needed to be, we got back on Highway 141, waved goodbye to Search and Rescue, and continued heading West.

We arrived home, safely, approximately 10 hours after we left. “Funny. A six hour drive takes us about nine hours,” Ice Cream Man observed. He made a good observation, unfortunately, ‘timely’ is not one of the criteria/qualities for a scenic byway. Fortunately, ‘timely’ is not a criteria/quality of any of us either. Scenic, cultural, natural (mostly) and recreational are, however, some of our qualities. Thus, according to the Federal Highway Association, this not only makes us a Scenic Byway, it makes us All-American – lost All-Americans on a Scenic Byway.