‘The Wayside is, at times, more a matter of perspective than a true, physical place. A prime example is ‘The International Travel Experience,’ which was too popular to qualify for a Wayside designation in its heyday, the 1950s, and remained a little too popular well into the new millennium- a case of nostalgia blinding its audience to certain red flags. ‘The International Travel Experience’ was something of a museum on wheels, allowing the working-class family to ‘tour the world in ten minutes or less’ by presenting room-sized mock-ups of famous destinations and sprinkling them with crude, robotic caricatures to serve as guides.
Now defunct, ‘The International Travel Experience’ rots like a corpse off the interstate, drawing gross sympathy from apologists and rightful scorn from those travelers who strive for a kinder roadside. Violence can be expected, here. The soul of the thing is not yet extinguished.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
