 |
U.S. 151: Dubuque
|
Here's a lesson in trip planning for you.
Never, ever use a two-year old atlas to plan your route.
According to my atlas, U.S. 151 was designated a two-lane highway from where it separated from U.S. 61 just south of Dubuque, Iowa to Monticello, Iowa. And some stretches further west also were marked as two-lane.
So when planning the trip we looked forward to visiting small towns such as Fillmore and Cascade, Monticello and Anamosa.
Never have I been as disappointed as I was driving this stretch of highway.
I kept expecting the four-lane to reduce itself to two. Any minute now, I thought, as we drove.
The map says this should be two lanes, I kept saying. And kept saying all the way to Anamosa as we bypassed town after town.
So, what should have been a nice, leisurely two-lane excursion for most of the way between Dubuque and Cedar Rapids, became instead, a nightmarish drive at 70 miles per hour on a highway recently rebuilt to Interstate-grade surrounded by nothing but farm fields.
Ugh.
Maybe someday we'll get back to this area and drive the old stretches of U.S. 151 and visit those towns.
Until then, our suggestion to you: Avoid U.S. 151 between Dubuque and Cedar Rapids. It's an Interstate Highway to Hell.
Unique lodging | Bypassed, but not forgotten | Geocaching/Letterboxing | E-mail alerts |
About us | Contact us | U.S. travel sites
