The Drive

We left Huntsville, AL around 4 p.m. and were supposed to spend the night in Memphis, TN. The plan was to find somewhere free to camp and explore the city the next morning before the long drive to Wichitawesome, KS. We drove through Memphis around 9 to 9:30, as the sun was going down, and decided that our plans needed to be modified. The idea of trying to find somewhere free to camp (never an easy undergoing and often an illegal one) is best done in day time and setting up a tent in the dark is kind of a bummer always. Anyway, we kept on going and set our sights on Wichita, which would allow us to slow down for the next couple of days rather than constantly feeling rushed. It would be a long drive…13 or so hours. We didn’t have to get all the way, but any closer meant less we would have to drive the next day. Spoiler alert: we made it. I just gave the ending away to give some sort of evidence as to the mindset of the writers. We drove a long long way and slept for two hours in our car at a rest stop. How did we do this? I mean, we did wake up at 7 a.m. and see TN, GA, and AL with Tori’s relatives in the morn/afternoon. We didn’t leave til 4 p.m. and still drove all that day. Well let me tell you about the power of DDP. Diet Doctor Pepper…all the flavor, all the jolt, and less of a stomach ache when you drink 8 of them. I liked to think that the DDP acronymically imbued me with the power of DDP (Diamond Dallas Page) to do the Diamond Dash around tractor trailers. The following text should be an interesting diatribe in delirium.
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Memphis looked like a city. Nothing too interesting from the road. Concrete. Roads. Meh. Shortly there after, (order may be wrong) we entered Mississippi for a very short time. Long enough to get gas and get scared but not long enough to pee. I (Stew) am from the Shenandoah Valley and my highschool celebrated pride week with “Drive your Tractor to School Day” and “Camo Day.” People in my town fly the Stars and Bars above the Stars and Stripes. My 5 minutes in Mississippi showed me that I had in fact never met a true redneck. These people had developed extra long necks just to enable more of it be red. Hair was straight out of 1980 or military, clothes were straight out of military or often forgotten (overalls are clearly sufficient and wearing a shirt means you’re just asking to be called a fairy), and the accent was more akin to drunken German gorillas grunting than a discernible language. I felt uncomfortable. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that Mississippi led me to create a new column on this blog: Dude, Don’t Go There!
And thus we add Mississippi to our list.
But the drive wasn’t all bad. Arkansas (America’s most forgotten state given that it seems to be another Southerner claiming that Kansas is not theirs but “Ars.”) is awesome. Okay, it isn’t awesome. But here are the good things (the things that keep it off my DDGT list):
1. Bridge over the Mississippi River (Dude, totally go there): it is beautiful and long and a feat of engineering. The sun was still setting, which perplexes me as I remember it. We got a picture of it, but may have done a poor job of demonstrating the mammoth size of the bridge.
2. Ability to pretend you’re driving a space ship. Most of the time, when you cross a bridge at night, you can only tell because there is no lights around and thus, you are over water. In Arkansas, you can’t tell if you’re on a bridge because there are no lights around anywhere. While listening to Ender’s Game on tape, this made for a very fun drive.

3. Ozarks: Who knew Arkansas wasn’t a pancake? Not this writer, that’s for sure. I was pleasantly surprised to re-discover topography. Also, we heard a rodeo going on when we stopped for a walk.
Arkansas gets zero thumbs down.
Which leads me to my least favorite “state” ever. I use these guys: “ and “ because I now propose to revoke OKLAHOMA’S privilege of statehood. The only good thing to come out of Oklahoma is Mark McGuire, who wasn’t even good when he was there. He didn’t use steroids, he just lived in Oklahoma and finally left. It’s like going from 20 times gravity to a place that doesn’t suck. Of course he was awesome. You can tell if an Oklahoma native is intelligent pretty easily: they no longer live there. I paid $15 in tolls to drive on roads through a place I didn’t want to be. Even the Ozarks were no longer a novelty. They were a surprise in Arkansas but I knew they were going to be in OK. At that point, they were about as impressive as a sock. No, Oklahoma, you are not OK. You, sir, are subpar. There is, however, one good thing about Oklahoma: 75 mph speed limits. Normally, I would object to such speed limits. They’re dangerous and waste gas. In this case, they were Oklahoma’s only redeeming quality because they enabled me to get out of there as soon as possible.
Oklahoma: DUDE DO NOT IN ANY WAY EVER GO THERE.
Eventually, after what seemed like seven tours of duty in Hell, we got to Kansas (the old Indian word for Zion). While Kansas was no Jersey Shore, it was significantly nicer than Oklahoma. There was a mountain, I assume, because we kept going up for a while. Then nothing happened. Then we came to a rest stop just short of Wichita, where we pulled into the visitor center at 5:30 a.m. and slept until 8 a.m. When we woke, we got some directions to a beautiful lake, took showers at a truck stop where we talked the woman into letting both of us shower together for $8 rather than the customary $8 per person. Then we went to Cracker Barrel, where (despite all of Cousin Katie’s work), I remembered that Tori is not really a Southerner. Seriously, she’d never been to a Cracker Barrel? And she didn’t eat her grits? WHUH? We haven’t made it to Wichita yet. We decided to avoid the city. I’m finishing this entry from Panera. Tori is sleeping in the car. I need to go drive her to the lake. Tomorrow we’ll be in Denver/Boulder to visit my Semester at Sea friends and Tori’s cousin, Gab.
Song of the Day: Anything by Orson Scott Card
Miles driven: 800
Hours slept: 2

EDIT: Upon futher review, Mark McGuire is not from Oklahoma, thus leaving me with zero good things I can think of from Oklahoma.