AMERICAN NOTES: On the Road

Many Americans who regard their roadside landscapes as a wilderness of neon-lit motels and fried-chicken stands may or may not be cheered to learn that two wandering Russians have found these same roadside landscapes to be a paradise of—well, neon-lit motels and fried-chicken stands. The two wanderers—Boris Strelnikov, Washington correspondent of Pravda, and Vasily Peskov, a visiting journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda—spent six weeks driving 10,000 miles from coast to coast and discovered all manner of things to be praised and emulated.

"We should learn from America how to build such highways," they wrote, impressed that even minor arteries on their...