Blue Highways and The American Roadtrip

During the class discussion on Blue Highways last Thursday, one of Professor Urrea's questions really struck me. He asked if the book made anyone want to travel, and for me, the book accomplished this. I have never been paticularly interested in undergoing the American roadtrip experience; I think the best travel experience is when I have the opportunity to leave the United States. Blue Highways, however, persauded me to take a second look at America. William Least Heat Moon's experiences driving through obscure small towns and describing the people that he met along the way reminded me that Americans and the American landscape are truly remarkable. Many of the photos of the people that Heat-Moon met along his travels look tired and overworked, but I have the impression that the majority of them enjoy the work they do. I think the notion of hard work and the importance of being productive is a distinctly American value, and Blue Highways glorifies this. I found a video clip of William Least Heat-Moon talking about Blue Highways and his other book Prairie Earth, and he describes the differences between traveling and staying in one place. In this video Heat-Moon says that he wants his readers to feel connected to the land that they live on, and while I think he is doing something different in Blue Highways, he still wants readers to feel connected to America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKUvoFp6hxg