The Highway Brings Out the Best In Everybody

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Dispatches From the Road: Part 11 or so.

By Bob Wire, 7-22-08



	"I am the king of all I survey...I will conquer and vanquish all who..." "RUSTYGETDOWNOFFTHOSEROCKSRIGHTNOW!"

“Welcome to Carlisle! We’re the mosquito capital of the United States.”

The matronly farmer’s wife was standing at our table, holding a plate piled high with her salad bar harvest. She’d come over to say hi as the dinner crowd (8:00 for the farming community) was starting to roll in to the pizza and salad joint we’d chosen for dinner. It was a hotel night for us, and we planned on hitting the road after dinner, and driving until we’d had enough for that day.

“Actually,” I responded, “I believe the mosquito capital of the world is at McClay Flats in Missoula.” I took a ragged bite of my jalapeño and onion pizza for emphasis.

“Well, that might be true. But you don’t want to camp around here. If you do want to camp, come over to my house. I have five red-headed grandchildren.” She went on to add that they grow rice in that area, which finally explained what we’d been staring at for the last half hour. Enormous rice paddies lining both sides of the freeway, with evenly spaced, curved trenches cut through every 50 yards or so. I thought it was a huge Martian graveyard, or maybe hydroponic bonsai ganja. See, I come from Missoula where the main crop is knapweed.

“In fact, we grow the rice that they use in Nestle Crunch bars,” she said proudly. She told us we could find some decent hotels in Fort Smiff, then left to go join her husband.

I looked at Rusty. “Rice? When did they stop using cockroach legs?” He leveled his deadpan look at me. It’s getting tougher and tougher to get a rise out of that kid. But I did get him good in the Badlands. He was standing on a boardwalk, studying a sign that showed a picture of a rattlesnake with a warning for hikers to stay on the path. I snuck up behind him and shook a box of Tic-Tacs right behind his head. He jumped a little, but said I didn’t scare him. Yeah, right. Then what’s that wet spot on your shorts?

So we ate our pizza and salad and drove on. We didn’t get as far as Fort Smiff, but found a Best Western in Russellville, where the rooms were decent and they had a guest laundry. The double queen rooms had been averaging $80 across the country’s midsection, which is pretty reasonable. The quality of the rooms themselves varied widely, though, and we tried to stick to the mid-level chains like Marriott, Best Western and Rosie O’Donnell’s new Sleep ‘N Crap Inns.

We didn’t have any planned stops coming up until Scotts Bluff in western Nebraska, so we were driving hard for two days to make up time. No matter how carefully I measured our route and planned time for meals, pee stops, etc., we never seemed to get as far as I’d hoped. But we had a deadline to get home by Saturday the 19th at the latest, and were shooting for Friday. So this meant two days of zooming through most of Arkansas and Nebraska.

Barb was the Stop ‘n See proponent, and I was Mr. Let’s Get On the Road. So she was fretting a bit somewhere near the middle of Nebraska, and I tried to cheer her up. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Look at it this way. It’s not like there’s anything to see in these two states anyway.” She gave me a look that said: next hotel, three beds.

Our road-eating make-up days necessitated the use of interstates, so the driving was smooth and boring. Barb was at the wheel for about 95% of the trip to avoid getting carsick. I read maps and called out the route. I didn’t mind the role, but she was driving me crazy with indecision and second-guessing. “Take I-25 North all the way to Forth Smiff,” I’d say.

“I-25,” she repeated.

“All the way to Fort Smiff.”

“Got it.” She drove on. Twenty minutes later: “Oh, here’s 71 West coming up. Am I supposed to take that exit?”

“No, I-25. All the way to Forth Smiff.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

Half an hour later: “It looks like I-70 West to Topeka is coming up. Is that what we want?”

“Woman, we’re on I-25. We LIKE I-25. STAY on I-25. To Fort Smiff. Do not be tempted by other highways. Do not waver. Take no exits until you see a sign that says WELCOME TO FORT SMIFF!” I looked down, and I had crumpled the state map into a ball the size of a kumquat. “We’re going to need a new map. Preferably one that shows where all the liquor stores are.”

Insulted and hurt, she gave it a little more gas and began catching up to the traffic flow. In order to try and maximize our fuel efficiency, we had vowed to keep it no faster than 65 mph. That means we were the always the slowest vehicle on the interstate. We were even passed by the odd Ford Focus or Edge or whatever they’re calling the Pinto these days.

The Midwest is absolutely crammed with semis. They traveled closely spaced, drafting off each other. It somehow reminded me of strings of elephants marching into the big top. My favorite trucker moment was when we were overtaken by three white cars which were swooping around traffic, making a game of it. Probably some dopey young Fast ‘n Furious wingnuts. There was a cluster of trucks ahead of us, and one of them pulled into the left lane, forcing the white cars to go around him on the right. One asshole actually passed a couple of cars on the shoulder. But then the truck pulled even with another semi, blocking the white cars just behind him. It was a deliberate move, as he held his position for twenty minutes while the testosterone-addled drivers of the white cars continually changed lanes back and forth, looking for an opening. It was all very entertaining.

We sailed along, putting miles behind us. The scenery was vast and monotonous, broken only by the occasional cemetery. I tell you, golf courses and cemeteries are the biggest wasters of prime real estate. We saw a few road-killed armadillos, which was a real treat for the kids. We passed Fort Smith, which I realized wasn’t Fort Smiff when I saw it on the map. I told Barb that we needed to catch Highway 2 West to Lincoln, which should save us an hour or more.

“Highway 2 West,” she said.

“Right. To Lincoln. Then we stay on I-80 for the rest of the day. Highway 2 West. To Lincoln. I’m sure there will be a sign.” I read for a little while, then I dozed off. When I awoke, I could see that we were still heading north. “Did you see the cutoff for Highway 2 yet?”

“Nope,” said Barb. “I don’t think so.”

Then we passed an interesting sign: “Welcome to South Dakota.”

We’re going to need another map.

[Next: the stuff I promised last time. Man, this is a long trip.]