Colorado Scenic Byways, Taking the Other Road

Photography: Jim Steinberg
Designer: Jenny Barry
Foreword: Governor Bill Ritter, Jr.
Portfolio Publications, 2008
Slipcased, two oversized volumes, $79.95

Colorado Book Award
ForeWord Book of the Year, Travel

Local Bestseller list, Denver Post
Featured in Colorado Getaways, PBS Channel 4, 5280 Magazine

Colorado Scenic Byways comes as a slipcased set including two books: Volume One, a coffeetable book that pairs glorious photos with lyrical essays on the state and each byway.

Volume Two, a road atlas and guide to all the routes with detailed maps, and notes on when to go and what to do along the way.

Part history, part geology and botany study, part armchair travel…. These two books will make you want to spend your next vacation close to home. — Front Range Living

Pairs a coffee-table book with a road atlas that details specific attractions along each route…. Just try to keep your eyes on the road, OK? — Denver Post

From the Colorado Scenic Byways book tour

Colorado Scenic Byways book tour postcard

From the Introduction:

This book was inspired by a quintessentially American love: the promise of the open road. Americans began taking to the road back when road meant two dusty ruts heading toward the horizon, long before highways were invented and the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1925 designated the first cross-country routes. The interstate highway program, authorized in 1955 as a way to expedite movement of military troops and matériel, hooked American drivers on getting there fast. And we forgot the soul of the open road; the freedom to wander, to stop and sniff a wildflower, ramble beside a creek, shape a snowball from a late-summer snowbank, gawk at a long-abandoned mining town, buy a fresh peach from a farmstand, or simply discover a new vista. …