© jan albers | all rights reserved
Geneva, Ohio
Some 1,500 acres of grapes are grown in the Geneva area. Conditions are ideal in the narrow stretch from the Lake Erie shore to about 10 miles inland, since the lake protects vines from damaging frosts on either end of the growing season.
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
The Checkboard Diner, on Housatonic Street in Pittsfield, Mass., apparently had at least two previous incarnations as diners: Miss Pittsfield and Lizi’s Miss Pittsfield, after being moved to the town from its original location in nearby Dalton. It now appears to be destroyed.
© karen e. titus | all rights reserved
Idaho Falls, Idaho
When you’re on the road, you often want to pull off for a cup of coffee or a bite to eat. Once you do, the road starts to beckon again almost immediately.
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Geneva Ohio
The Geneva (Ohio) Grape Jamboree celebrates all things grape. Held the last weekend of September, it features wine tasting, various competitions (including waitresses balancing glasses of wine while racing down Route 20) grape stomping, and two parades, as well as the crowning of Miss Grapette.
© karen e. titus | all rights reserved
Waterloo, New York
Three blocks away from the excitement of Main Street.
© jan albers | all rights reserved
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Becket, Mashachusetts
The West Becket Cemetery includes the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers. The headstones, tilted this way and that by time, seem to mimic the surrounding hills and Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Albany, New York
This is as urban as it gets along Route 20 in New York, as it passes through the state capital of Albany. Here it runs along the Empire State Plaza, home to the offices of state legislators and executive branch agencies. More compelling, perhaps, is the egg-shaped structure called, appropriately enough, The Egg, a performing arts center that descends six stories below ground level.
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Modern-day Albany is a far cry from its early days. It was first settled as the Dutch trading posts of Fort Nassau (1614) and lays claim to being the longest continually chartered city in the United States (chartered in 1686).
© jan albers | all rights reserved
Chadron, Nebraska
This sod house is part of the Museum of the Fur Trade, in Chadron, Nebraska, built on the site of a trading post for the American Fur Company that was established in 1837. The post was in ruins by the mid-1880s, and it was reconstructed in 1956 on its original foundation stones.
© karen e. titus | all rights reserved
Auburn, New York
This girl must be in her mid- 20s by now. Surely she’s performing on stage, wherever she is.
© jan albers | all rights reserve
Mount Lebanon, New York
A settlement designed to fail. Which it did, in 1947, when the last seven members of the community left this site.
The Accidental Highway 