Cross-Country Road Trip: Mapquest is a Damn Liar

By Bob Wire, 6-23-08

The Road Trip looms at the end of the week, the way the Kamikaze does at the carnival when you’ve got a belly full of cotton candy and gas station-grade nachos. It’s there. You know it’s going to happen. The only question is where the vomit is going to land.

We’re driving from Missoula to Murphy, North Carolina. We want to get a gander at the grocery store dumpster Eric Rudolph was hiding behind when the long arm of the law caught up with the Olympic Park Bomber in 2003. Well, also to spend some time with Barb’s folks, who have a place nearby.

According to Mapquest, the distance from Missoula to Murphy is 2146 miles. But those are Mapquest miles, and have little to do with reality. For example, they fail to take into account the extra 236 miles incurred when we double back from Butte because Speaker put her suitcase in the wrong vehicle. I guess that never happens in the Mapquest minivan.

The website also claims that this little jaunt should take just a shade over 32 hours. Again, not quite in line with the Wire family traveling style. In fact, the last time we drove to Butte it took 32 hours. Pee stops (man, I need to test these kids for FloMax™), snack stops, drink stops, souvenir stops (you never know when we’ll pass through Drummond again!), mediation stops, and any number of unscheduled derailments are just a part of the traveling experience for us. Thirty-two hours. Psht. Gimme a lunch break.

We won’t be following the Mapquest route anyway, because we are going to See America. And what can you see from the interstate? A bunch of Stuckey’s restaurants, and minivans full of squalling brats passing by, with parents holding up “KILL ME NOW” signs in the window. No, we want to get a real taste of our country’s soft, chewy center.

To that end, we’ve posted a giant U.S. map on the living room wall, and we’ve been putting colored push pins in places of potential interest along the projected route. Oh, there’s the obvious bunch of landmarks like Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the St. Louis Arch, etc. But as the trip draws near, and we’ve been scrutinizing various atlases and websites about quirky roadside attractions, the possibilities are piling up.

“What’s this blue pin here?” asked Speaker this morning, pointing to an area just outside of Lexington, Kentucky.

“That, my dear, is the Putt Putt for Jesus mini-golf course. And blue, as everyone knows, is the color of heaven. Your Uncle Jonathan told me about it.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“Because way back in biblical times, even before color movies, Jesus used to stop by there and play a round once in a while. He always shot an 18. I just think it’ll be funny when a card-carrying atheist like me lines up a putt through the same giant clown mouth as the son of God once did.”

She looked at me with a smooth blend of skepticism and pity. “You’re weird.”

“Oh yeah, where did you stick a pin?” I challenged, thrusting out my chin in mandibular indignation.

She pointed to a cluster of pins bunched up in the Los Angeles area. “This is where Hannah Montana is filmed. And this pink one is the Mattel factory in Hawthorne, where Barbies used to be made. And this purple one…”

“Honey, we’re not coming within two thousand miles of this stuff. We’re going east, not west,” I laughed. “That’s just too far out of the way.”

Her lower lip immediately ballooned to three times its normal size, and she poked it out as her eyes got furious and wet. Pouting mightily, she yanked all the pins out of the Golden State. I tried to mollify her, saying that California had been my first choice, but here mom won out, insisting that we go east. Not true, of course, but I find that sometimes feeding your children a small line of bullshit now can offset bigger problems later. Speaker didn’t say another word about the matter, and I went into the kitchen to make dinner.

A half hour later Barb came home from work, bedraggled and famished. I met her in the living room, where she was shedding her briefcase and computer bag, studying the map.

“What’s this black pin outside of Billings?” she asked. “I don’t know of anything within miles of this area that’s even remotely interesting.”

Speaker suddenly appeared before us like an apparition, eyes puffy and red. “That’s where I’m going to bury daddy’s body after I kill him for not taking us to California.” She stomped past me to go sulk in her bedroom, pausing just long enough to jab a pushpin into my leg.

Thirty-two hours each way? Damn you, Mapquest! Damn you all to HELL.

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