Competitive rest area: fodder fodder everywhere, but not a drop to drink!

In an era when almost every interstate exit offers the requisite gas/food/lodging, what is the function of publicly financed rest areas?  I ponder this subject not because I have any major beef with their existence.  I still use rest areas fairly often and have featured more than a few in my blog.  Though most operate alongside federally funded, limited-access highways, individual states finance their design, construction, and operation.  In more recent decades, rest areas have become less systematized, less mass-produced.  Individual states have devoted more care in curating their appearance, often endowing them with vernacular or unique architecture, in an attempt to bolster the state’s brand.  Since the most predictable location for them is near state boundaries, they typically function as a welcome center after crossing the line into that new state.  And yes, they can operate elsewhere in the middle of the state, usually (but not always) in a rural area where commercial development at exits is less frequent.  Some states have also strategically relocated rest areas over the years, responding by closing the ones that ostensibly get less use.  Many have offered considerably greater space to accommodate overnight parking for the trucking industry; most have included a reasonable number of vending options; quite a few (especially welcome centers near state boundaries) have offered small amounts of museum-style interpretive space, wayfinding, and even a human guide to offer assistance during conventional peak travel hours.  (These additional features help distinguish them from gas stations or truck stops, which otherwise offered the same basics but with additional convenience shopping and, of course, gasoline.)  In short, many states have fostered a culture around fusing rest areas with state branding and accommodations.  The modern competitive rest area isn’t just a place to pee.

Regardless of one’s opinions on the need for rest areas in 2026, it beggars belief that a “nice” one wouldn’t have a drinking fountain available in the middle of the day.

From my perspective, one of the most reliable features to a rest area is a well-maintained public restroom and a place to get water without paying for it.  But the Maryland Welcome Center near Sideling Hill, which I have covered before, was shooting blanks on the mild, sunny winter day when I recently took these photos.

This is hardly the no-frills cement block rest area of the 1980s.  Maryland Welcome Center has all the features of the competitive rest area, even though the closest point where an interstate crosses a state line is about ten miles to the east.  The website is disappointingly coy about these extra features, but in the immediate vicinity of the parking lots are numerous picnic tables, dog walks, and a veterans memorial. It’s one of the most beautiful settings I’ve encountered for a rest area, with magnificent vistas on either side of Interstate 68, where a few short pedestrian paths and climbs normally allow visitors to explore for better vantage points.

Yeah, these steps to the closest precipice—probably the zenith of Sideling Hill—are closed temporarily.  But when they’re open: what a view!  I offered some hints of the appearance during a greener (but not sunnier) time of year in my previous post at this location.  This competitive rest area even includes a pedestrian bridge across the freeway, linking it with the similar welcome center that services eastbound I-68 traffic.  (All these photos, and the more abundant photos from my previous article, come from the I-68 westbound Maryland Welcome Center.)  The Victor Cushwa Memorial Bridge was undeniably extravagant at the time of its 1991 unveiling, concurrent with the opening of I-68.  It still is: the bridge serves no utilitarian purpose, because pedestrians don’t need to go from the eastbound welcome center to the westbound and back.  It’s there for the atmosphere.  And it creates an implicit a gateway on a stretch of highway where bridges and overpasses are scarce, and it offers tremendous views of the various rock strata that USDOT carved through to build this latecomer in the American interstate highway system.

But a competitive rest area like this shouldn’t require tapping into an aquifer to get aqua.  Perched on this steep slope, it’s no surprise that the building offers two floors to host its interior amenities,  but only one floor was open on this special sunny day.

And there’s the rub.  The interior normally offers a welcome center with a history of the area, its proximity to both the Pennsylvania boundary (the Mason-Dixon Line) and West Virginia just a little bit further, south of the Potomac River.  Here in the skinniest part of Maryland, the Sideling Hill Welcome Center features numerous brochures guiding visitors to nearby attractions and some informational placards explaining the distinctive geological character of the area.  But it was completely closed that day, along with any and all access to drinking fountains.

The primary entrance is on the side; the three wooden doors in the center of the above pic offer access to men’s, women’s, and a unisex restroom.  But the only drinking fountains and bottle refilling stations are in the most guest-friendly wing of this otherwise highly competitive rest area.

I’m admittedly being a tad petty.  After all, it was perfectly reasonable for the primary interior to be closed; these photos date from Christmas Day, a federal holiday—a government holiday at all levels.  I had a long cross-country drive and had emptied my water bottle.  I recognized then that I could never expect visitors centers to operate on December 25th, and yes, the traffic along I-68 (never very heavy) was as light as one might expect on this most important of Christian holidays.  At the very least, the operators took care to keep the restrooms open for the few users.  If I had had a small enough bottle to fit the basin, I could get water from a restroom faucet.  And since I did not, I could always walk the additional fifty feet to the shelter with vending machines and buy a bottle. 

(I didn’t buy a bottle.  I was thirsty, but I had principles.)

My mild dissatisfaction owes itself entirely to the fact that this is one of the most competitive rest areas I have ever seen in terms of its capitalization of a view, its variety of amenities, its visual impact in an otherwise austere and sparse part of this densely populated state.  As recently as 2019, the Maryland Office of Tourism development had high ambitions for this welcome center, ramping up its amenities to make Sideling Hill a gateway attraction. COVID most likely put the kibosh on those plans, and the history of the facility has been spotty since its opening as the Sideling Hill Exhibit Center about 35 years ago: various state cost-cutting measures left it shuttered in 2009 (including the restrooms for long stretches of time), while its 2015 reopening emphasized tourist information, displacing many of the scientific displays. Most evidence I can find suggests that the educational staff have not returned since the 2020 lockdowns.

Regardless of all the extra perks, for this competitive rest area to meet basic expectations, the solution is simple: place some drinking fountains or bottle refilling stations somewhere on the premises that remain open 24 hours, much like the restrooms. The designers of this space failed to account for one little detail, and accounting for those little things are precisely how entities compete, whether public or private.  Rest areas, even in the 1980s (the earliest I can remember) at least offered a predictably clean if hardly fancy place to use the loo.  Gas stations may offer more things for sale, but cleanliness is a crap shoot (pun intended).  With the welcome center closed, this competitive rest area temporarily reverts to the typical expectation I used to have: park, relieve yourself, stretch for a minute, then get back in the car.

Oh, and get a drink.  Even in the 80s, we had amazing drinking fountains.  (My personal favorite brand was Oasis.  Delicious.)