Along the I-75: Information and Services Guide from Detroit to Florida

Graham Adams, Jr., is a professor of American history at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick.

Each year thousands of Canadian “snowbirds” flock southward to
Florida during the winter. Many travel by automobile using U.S.
Interstate 75 as their chief route. I–75 ranks as one component of the
extensive U.S. Interstate Highway System that Hunter terms “the
largest coordinated public works program in the entire history of
mankind.” Along the I–75 is an updated guide to this famous artery,
which wends its way through Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Georgia.

Maps comprise the most important feature of Hunter’s work. Each
page-sized map represents a stretch of 25 miles of highway. The
Interstate line is always depicted in the centre of the map, and markers
indicate gas, food, and lodging services. Colors show speed limits, and
a road profile at the side of each map notes elevation levels.

Hunter furnishes descriptions of historic places, such as Raisin River
in Michigan (site of one of the largest battles of the War of 1812) and
Chickamauga Battlefield in Georgia (site of one of the bloodiest clashes
of the American Civil War), and unique locales such as the birthplace of
Colonel Sanders’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, Neil Armstrong’s Air and
Space Museum in Ohio, and the Barnsley Gardens of rare and exotic plants
in Georgia. He also includes information on what’s new in Disney World
in Orlando; useful tips on driving gloves, car refrigerators,
coffeemakers, Citizen’s Band radio, car washes, weigh stations,
restaurants, shopping malls, and discount coupons; and a list of
hotels/motels and their various amenities, room rates, and telephone
numbers.

This handbook with its spiral binding and plastic cover is decidedly
user-friendly. It is a pleasure to encounter a travel guide that is so
well organized, so complete, and so readable.