Back in early 2018, I visited my college to give a little talk to the Political Science Club, of which one of my college friends was the president. It was fun, but the drive up from Virginia—involving I-95, a closed exit ramp onto which a wayward truck had spilled boards of lumber, the New Jersey Turnpike, and U.S. Route 22—wasn’t so fun.

But more than anything actually related to that little trip, I remembered this, which I apparently tweeted about a few months later:

Addison Del Mastro @ad_mastro

@schadenfraade @GordonAChaffin @mcmansionhell Somewhere along the turnpike right after the bridge into NJ there's an old rusted 50s era Howard Johnsons sign. Drove past it a few months ago

October 3rd 2018

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Through the trees along the northbound lanes, a few feet in, I had spotted an ancient, decrepit Howard Johnson’s sign, a little piece of the Turnpike’s old life that nobody had ever bothered to remove...