Its not like we haven’t made this journey before. Nineteen hundred miles. Seven states. Obscene gasoline prices. Same boring Interstate 80. And we come out to visit the same person, Jen’s grandma.
Each trip is a bit different. The first time, four years ago, we took our then brand new travel trailer. It took four days and $2300 in fuel. 2007 was the year that gasoline prices were pushing five bucks a gallon. And yet it was still simpler and cheaper than dragging two kids and a mother-in-law through airport security and running across O’Hare to catch the connector… that’s assuming we bought a direct flight there. That trip was just myself, Jen, the kids and Jen’s mom.
The subsequent trip, in 2009, was a bit different. My father-in-law came. They took their trailer, which meant I only had to listed about how slow I drive with my trailer on I-80 once every two hours, when we would stop for fuel or to pee. We stayed at the same four RV parks in Wells, NV; Rawlins, WY; Henderson, NE and Davenport, IA.
This year, we changed it quite a bit. We decided against trailering it out east. Jen, the kids and I took our 2002 Tahoe that just turned over 100,000 miles last week. My in-laws took their Honda Accord. We decided to shave a day off the trip by utilizing one of the two speed settings most males are born with (which are STOP and GO FAST).
The past two trips, we had houses attached to our vehicles, which meant we were towing little diners behind us. We would pull over wherever we damn well pleased and ate in the comfort of our miniature homes on wheels. This trip was different. We didn’t want to stop at fast food and fall asleep from fat-induced comas those foods cause. We also didn’t want the time or expense of eating at a diner or other sit-down restaurant. So we packed our lunches into ice chests so we could eat at rest stops.
After implementing a lifelong dream of an interconnected network of limited access roads, President Eisenhower’s Interstate route system needed a place for truckers and vacationers to rest while driving on very straight and very boring Interstate highways. The first one we hit was in Nevada. The name of the rest stop: Beowawe.
Beowawe in native American loosely translates to “Where the Fuck Am I?!?”. There is nothing around this rest stop, except the rest stop and the Interstate… and the whole of rural Nevada in all of its sagebrushed glory. It is as if someone was driving down Interstate 80 with a PortaPotty behind them, broke down and said “Fuck it! I’ll park here. Where the Fuck Am I, anyways?”
And if you look at how most of the houses outside of “developed” cities in Nevada are situated, it becomes clear that this is the thought process of homesteading in that state, too. Some guy just drives until his truck dies, unhitches his trailer and now he’s home.
The other big change was that Jen and her mom got to try their hand at Interstate driving. Without the burden of an extra four tons behind us, Jen gladly took the wheel. And I soon realized why she was soooooo willing to do so. Nevada is BORING! And not just in the “wow, this road is straight, I wish there was a curve up ahead” boring that you experience while driving through that shithole state. At least there are idiots in Lexuses (or is it Lexi.. I don’t know) or truckers pulling triple trailers at 90 miles an hour to avoid that keep things interesting, even exciting at times. No…. being the passenger, you get FOUR HUNDRED MILES of mind numbing NOTHINGNESS. There are no cacti. There are no cattle. There are no trees unless there is a town, that’s how you know it’s a town and not a bunch of broken down truck with trailers behind them.
Then, as a special treat for surviving the boring dullness of Nevada, you are REWARDED with the ninety miles of super straight highway through the famed Salt Flats of Utah! (yay.) There really isn’t much to say about the flats, except that they are flat and white and entirely too long.
The drive made us appreciate what we do have. Air conditioning being the first, especially when we would stop and open the doors for a pee break or to fuel up. We would also discuss how pioneers would have made the journey, being that much of the Interstate 80 route follows the California Trail or the Hastings Cutoff (which is the “shortcut” the Donner party was talked into and ultimately lead to their demise). Crossing the Salt Flats or Nevada on FOOT, without air conditioning or a fast car to drive is simply insane.
These trips give us the opportunity to see interesting people on the road. Just quick glances of freaks and sideshow exhibits would give Jen and me several minutes of hilarious discussion that really helped in breaking up the eleven hour days of driving. The first guy that comes to mind is the gentleman in the pickup truck, circa 1965, with plywood signs on the side that read, “The National Anti-Sodomy Crusade”. Many questions came up with that one statement: Is he talking about the Biblical definition of sodomy, or the legal definition… or common law? What made him go on this crusade? Was HE sodomized before? Perhaps he sodomized the pigs he used to haul in his truck, and then found God? Does he know what Sodomy is, other than “bad”? How does his truck do for gas mileage?
Then there was the … um… heavy set gal (Jen doesn’t want me to use the term “Fat Assed Bitch”, even though she had arms the size of New Hampshire and an even bigger mouth) who was wearing jorts. (that’s jean-shorts for people who don’t visit peopleofwalmart.com). The jorts were so small on her, it looked as if her ass was eating them up with every step she took.
The guy driving the pickup with “Homeland Security Road Patrol” made us thing about what possible target existed in Wyoming. I guess it was a good thing I have a blonde wife and blond kids. And for someone like the gentleman driving that truck, I would say we all had pretty mouths as well.
Yes, it was the same drive, same miles, same destination and same reason for taking the journey in the first place. Yet, the experiences each time are just a bit different and as much as I hate preparing for and making the drive out to Quad Cities, Iowa/Illinois, there is always something I see that makes me laugh or at least thankful for what I do have.