If you wanted to drive from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, and needed to make time, you wouldn’t select U.S. Route 62. Interstate highways connect the cities in fewer miles and much less time. But if you did take 62, you’d be rewarded with a fascinating and diverse portrait of America. U.S. Route 62 takes 2271 miles to get from Niagara Falls to El Paso. On his bicycle, he got up close and personal with every one of them. Stan found the route to have many identities. Sometimes it meanders through quiet countryside while other times it roars along as a busy expressway. Occasionally it shows an urban face, climbs mountains, rolls over wooded hills, flirts with Interstates, stretches out in flatland boredom and crawls across blazing desert. Route 62 travels through 10 states, spending the most time in Oklahoma and Texas (404 miles in each state) and the least in Illinois (2 miles). Route 62 also crosses the path of numerous early trails, pioneer routes, historic journeys and primitive roads, the oldest dating from at least 1598. Although 62 bears the same number over its entire length, in some places it’s designated as a north-south route; at others, an east-west one. In various places, it picks up additional monikers: Blue Star Memorial Highway, Everly Brothers Boulevard, Texas Mountain Trail, Blue Moon of Kentucky Highway, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway, Trail of Tears, the Ozark Trail. If Route 62 was the medium for his journey, people who live and work near the highway were the substance of it. Mr. Purdum listened to what they had to say, and relays it in their own words, recording their comments as faithfully as memory and post-conversation note-taking allows. This then is the story of a highway, of people and of a journey. Stan welcomes you along for the ride.