Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Loving Web 2.0 -- the US 89 Appreciation Society

In my undergraduate class today, we got into a long talk about whether different forms of media move us away from our local roots toward more national or even global identifications and interests, corresponding to high falutin' terms I made them read about like time-space distanciation..

What I find most interesting myself is how the ever more participatory nature of the Internet, what we are calling Web 2.0, I guess, is how it loops back around and ties different eras and layers of my own identity and interests back into life here and now, which is increasingly a lot of heres and a lot of nows.

One of my favorite examples is the U.S. Route 89 Appreciation Society. I have spent a lot of time in various parts of my life, starting in college driving through Utah, which has scenery much like what I grew up with in Idaho, but even more varied. When our family started driving back to Idaho from places like Michigan, LA and Texas, we also found ourselves on US 89 in Utah, Arizona and even one little corner of Idaho. It is one of my favorite highways around in terms of scenic beauty, so it is fun to find a whole little corner of like minded people on the Web.

So here are some images from the latest email I got from them, directing me to their brand new updated website, http://www.us89society.org/