4 Things I Learned About Road Maps

I played Miranda Lambert's "Automatic" this morning and heard the line. "We'd take along a Rand McNally" referring to those old books of maps that we used before GPS came along.

Some interesting tidbits from my research:

• The first road map for cars (by Rand McNally) came out in 1904 and didn't contain Hawaii or Alaska because they weren't states yet.
• They also didn't have every road on them.
• Rand McNally also instigated numbered highways because the names of highways took up too much room. Especially in the smaller states.
• Ken Jennings who won for 6 straight months on Jeopardy, still uses an atlas when he travels.

I still keep one in my vehicle when I travel in case I want to take a little detour from my main route and do something touristy.