Along the way, there are signs for 'Points of Interest.' I would assume that these points are actually just gas stations where a tin of chew costs less than $7, and there isn't at least a 30% chance of getting robbed at gunpoint by a fellow customer. Because those places are certainly not in abundance on this drive. The second the sun goes down, it immediately feels like it's 3 a.m. On windy days, there are literally tumbleweeds blowing across the highway; it feels like a Wile E. Coyote & Roadrunner cartoon is about to break out. If I ever get pulled over on that stretch, I'm not stopping, because the sheriff is probably Leatherface's dad, and I'll end up getting brought back to the family farmhouse to get hung on a meathook and have my face cut off and made into a mask or something. If my car ever breaks down on this road, it's getting abandoned, because I know that within minutes, Anton Chigurh is coming around the corner with his air gun. (Just to throw one more pop culture reference in this paragraph, I'll mention something about the view being similar to when Forrest Gump is running back and forth across the country. Boom. Nailed it.)
Dude, I already told you, I'm not calling heads or tails. Just take my car already.While we're here, my favorite stretches of highway in America, in no particular order:
- Spokane to Seattle: tough to rate this one properly. I drove this during my first ever "real" road-trip without my family, and I had never been to this part of the country before, so I tend to remember everything about it through rose-colored glasses. I originally remembered the whole state of Washington being 4-lane Nascar madness, me and a couple other cars setting the pace, weaving through traffic and unofficially racing each other.....but I recently Google-Earthed it, and in reality, there isn't even one extra lane until halfway through the state, much less two extra lanes, so I might just be full of shit on this. Still fun though.
- San Francisco to LA: not much explanation needed. You're staring at the Pacific Ocean most the time, which sounds a million times cooler when you have lived in the midwest for 24 of your 27 years on this planet.
- Lawrence to Louisville: it's not so much the scenery (although I do mildly enjoy the trees and gently rolling hills of southern Illinois and my birthplace of southern Indiana; and it's also decent driving through St. Louis and seeing the Cardinals stadium and the Gateway Arch) but I'll always enjoy the trip because I know that every mile I drive brings me one mile closer to the best weekend of the year. However, the hungover drive home sucks- the Arch can suck my balls.
- Northern West Virginia to western Maryland: during our annual family roadtrips from North Dakota to Baltimore, I spent approximately 23 of the 24 hours in the car trying my best to annoy Brother and cause a general ruckus in the backseat. The one hour I wasn't, I was peering out the window, enthralled with trying to spot West Virgina University's football stadium peeking through the Appalachians. (That, and hoping against hope that a semi truck was gonna have to use the Runaway Vehicle ramp....can you imagine? Just an out-of-control 18-wheeler, careening up the ramp, threatening to jackknife off the side and back onto the highway......I would've given up a year's worth of allowance to see that happen back then. Just the two-word phrase 'Runaway Vehicle'.....awesome.
- Northern Utah to Northern Nevada: Pretty gorgeous stretch of road- the Salt Lake City area in particular. The open road unwinding in front of us, combined with a constant backdrop of a snow-topped mountain range, made it feel like the 'Alaska' level from Road Rash for Sega Genesis.
