In the past three days, I drove on Interstate 40 for 14 hours through three states. Seven hours each way to my son’s house to take Nick home. I am a exhausted.

First of all, it is flat in Eastern Arkansas. Like a pancake flat. For miles and miles and miles, all you see is one ugly winter field after another. On the road, all you see for miles and miles an miles is one ugly semi truck after another, along with people who lose their minds when they get on the road.

You know the type, they all drive ten or fifteen miles an hour above the speed limit, whipping in and out of lanes like they are driving the Indianapolis 500, and their favorite gesture requires the use of one finger. Tailgating is to the point that their grill is so close to the back of the car in front of them, that the driver of the car can’t see anything else. Road rage takes on a whole new meaning if someone dares to get in front of them and they aren’t going as fast as the driver behind them thinks they should. Car, truck, semi, doesn’t matter, the road hog wants to take on all of them just to get up the road a few minutes earlier so they can be slowed down again by the next line of trucks and cars.

The wind blows in Easter Arkansas and in Oklahoma. Hard. It blows from the north or south, never from the east or west. So the driver spends a good portion of his or her energy keeping the darned car on the road instead of letting the wind blow the car off into the ditch or center median. And the radio may work, but getting any station besides some farm report or Mexican music isn’t easy. Even the FM stations seem limited to rap or hiphop or ten different genre of Country music. Note to self: NEVER forget the MP3 player again!!! Although, after a while the Mexican music can grow on you. . .

I have had boring six hour days before, but these past few days of driving were given shots of pure adrenalin when some moron would run up behind me at 90 miles and hour (I was doing about 80 to pass the semi’s at times) ride close enough to me to touch my bumper with theirs and honk, flash lights, and scream and cuss (I guess, from the mouth going as fast as the car) when I wouldn’t move over. Not that I could with 12 trucks in a row to the right of me and one in front who slowed down to 60 MPH. What was I supposed to do, drive under the semi to get out of the way? Like it would do him any good. The idiot went around me on the grass median at about 70 MPH. Ten miles down the road, I caught up with him because three big semi’s had penned him in. Boy was he ticked. I was a bit annoyed to slow down to 60, but it was satisfying to see the trucks stop him from driving like a bully.

I am going to have a few magnetic bumper stickers made for my car.

“Tailgaters are bullies with wheels.”

“I slow down for tailgaters.”

“If you tailgate, you will need:
Very good reflexes
Very good brakes
Very good lawyers”

I LOATH road bullies . . . and I hate windy roads, and I really hate flat boring countryside. . . really.