On The Road, Leg 3: Middle America

On The Road, Leg 3: Middle America
by Oliver Butterick

With visions of gumdrops (or, rather, a Harvard coed) dancing through my head, the remainder of this great trek had a sense of “what could have been.” Instead of making stops along the way, we powered through the drive.

Thursday, 1:30pm (KANSAS)

If it wasn’t apparent already, it is now abundantly clear that Colby, Kansas is indeed the Oasis on the Plains. Two hours after leaving said Oasis, we’ve passed absolutely nothing except plains. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Well, that’s not entirely true. We did pass a sign that advertised the world’s largest prairie dog. No, we didn’t stop. (Remember? We powered through the rest of the drive!) Nor did we stop at the sign that beckoned us to see a five-legged cow and a six-legged steed. WTF are they putting in the water up there in Kansas??? Hmmm…did we pass a town called “Springfield?” Surely, creatures such as these only exist on The Simpsons.

We also decline to drive through Nebraska, forfeiting the opportunity to visit the town of my birth (Lincoln) or the town that is populated almost entirely by my kinfolk (Omaha). Luckily, I don’t think the internet has made it out there quite yet, so I’m not too worried about them learning that I ditched them. I mean, I think they just got cable TV.

Thursday, 4:30pm (KANSAS CITY, KS and MO)

When we stopped for gas, I handed over the wheel and relaxed in the passenger seat. Spending a significant portion of my adult life in San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, I’ve learned several things.

San Diego: Traffic is predictable. In larger cities, traffic can flow quite manageably most of the day. However, don’t even think about traveling North through the 5/805 merge during the late afternoon to early evening. It’s bad.
Los Angeles: Forget what I said about traffic flowing manageably most of the day. Or being predictable. Whereas San Diego is fine during the weekends, it seems like no one in LA has anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon than sit on the freeway.
San Francisco: Bridges are bottlenecks. So much so that standstill traffic is a daily ritual. At least in LA, the traffic moves (most of the time).

Anyone still wondering why I handed over the wheel as we approached Kansas City during rush hour, with the plan of crossing the Mississippi River? Let me just say that we didn’t look into taking a ferry. Maybe we should have.

So, you may be asking, “Isn’t the Mississippi River on the other side of Missouri?” Yes, you would be correct. Not looking at a map and forgetting somehow that St. Louis is on the Mississippi, I made that mistake. However, river or not, it didn’t matter. The traffic in Kansas City was horrendous. Okay, we went about 15 MPH for a half hour or so. Not that bad, when compared to SF, but we had been driving 90 MPH for the previous day and a half. All of a sudden, it felt like we were actually driving backwards.

So I failed Geography. Get over it already.

Thursday, 7:00pm (Approaching ST. LOUIS, MO)

It’s about dinnertime, and we’re between Kansas City and St. Louis, so we find a place to get some BBQ ribs. It looked like a regional chain restaurant, and the food was served quickly and was finger-licking good (I’ll take ribs over KFC any day of the week). Do I remember the name of the restaurant? No. My trip ended a month and a half ago. I don’t plan on returning there any time soon. Plus, I keep getting a “Memory Low” message from my brain, so I just need to delete stuff like that once in a while. So, if I forget your birthday, don’t take it personally. I’m running an outdated system here and they stopped making upgrades.

Thursday, 8:00pm (ST. LOUIS, MO)

Did I mention earlier that traffic can be unpredictable and that bridges are bottlenecks??? I thought so. I forgot to mention the effect of road repair crews on driving. Let me backtrack (again). When I attended UCSD in La Jolla, CA, we would often make late night drives down Miramar Road, just past NAS Miramar (now MCAS Miramar) to a 24-hour Mexican Restaurant called Alberto’s. It’s a chain, so look for one near you and try their carne asada burrito some time. Good stuff.

So, anyway, we’d drive down Miramar late at night, when there was always a road crew with bright lights and big machines. Not that I literally think that these big machines are going to eat me and my car, but, for some reason, I’m deathly afraid of them. One time, driving past the crew, there was a bulldozer that had its claw extended over the top of my car. Let me just say that had I not closed my eyes and finished driving past the site, I’m sure I would have been ingested by the mechanical mammoth.

Fast forward back to St. Louis. Bottleneck to the bridge, compounded by detours. We’re not Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan and it wasn’t rush hour, but traffic was nearly at a dead stop. We finally make it to the bridge only to find a giant jackhammer drilling a hole in the middle of the bridge. Did I mention my fear of big construction (or destruction) equipment??? Luckily, I wasn’t driving, because I don’t think I could have made my way across the bridge with closed eyes.

So, we left St. Louis behind us, deciding not to stop and visit a former classmate of Matt’s who he said I would find attractive but a little ditsy. I chose not to waste time on a possible hook-up in the middle of nowhere when I had my eyes on the prize: a young, intelligent, Puerto Rican Harvard student who had family living in the same town that my best friend was moving to. Maybe I’d have more than one reason to visit Bowie, MD.

To be concluded…

Oliver Butterick can be reached at oliver@babblog.com.