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Another interstate adventure

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By STEVE OTTO Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: June 12, 2009

It had been a long day. I mean not only that it was a long drive from Washington, D.C., starting early that morning to the mountains of western North Carolina, as it was the emotional impact of just getting out of D.C. alive.

I used to think Boston was the worst city in America to drive in ... well, maybe it still is, but Washington is right up there.

Not only that, things were a little testy. I'd been grousing about a meeting that I needed to go to the following day back home in Tampa, but the Frau wanted to detour a few hundred miles to check out our place in the North Carolina mountains.

So there we were, standing in our place and watching the sun sinking just above the mountains, when she looked at me and said we ought to drive home that night so I could make that meeting.

It was around 6:30 p.m. and I was pooped.

"If we leave right now," she started, "we'll get there around six in the morning."

I finished, "If we get there at all."

The coffee queen

The other thing that bothered me - I mean, other than the insanity of driving another 700 miles without any sleep - was that it would have to be on the interstates.

I despise driving on the interstate highways. She loves them, figuring if we break down there will be someone to help and also because she has memorized the locations of every Starbucks between here and anywhere else.

There are three main north-south arteries in the east: Interstates 75, 85 and 95. Over last weekend, we covered all three, not that you could easily tell the difference.

interstates are notable for their sameness - same motel chains, same fast-food chains, same billboards, same idiots driving on the road.

I say this every time we hit the road, but I swear the percentage of truly bad drivers - a group that includes tailgaters, speeders, people who swerve in and out, take up two lanes, drive slowly in the left lane - has multiplied.

It even seems to have spread to the truckers.

Wasn't there a time when you had some measure of respect for the truckers, who at least understood the rules of the road and didn't make it their quest to drive anyone smaller than them off the road?

Not anymore. Now it's everyone for himself.

The BM factor

That wasn't the worst of it. Around 1 a.m. she found an old Barry Manilow CD.

"Hey," she said as it moved into its second replay, "this one has all of his favorites. Most CDs just have one or two hits, but this one has six or seven."

I looked out the window. Barry Manilow was singing about Copacabana, and I was staring at Tifton, Ga. I don't think I've ever heard any songs about Tifton.

It was dawn as we rolled in past the water tower on Interstate 275. Traffic was starting to build coming into town.

Tampa looks pretty good at dawn. On this particular dawn, it looked even better. It looked like home and this Otto was out of gas. By the way, the meeting we came back for was canceled a few hours later.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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