Sports Trucks and Carnies

Before starting out on this tale, allow me to apologize in advance to long-haul truck drivers and carnival workers. You gotta make a living somehow. It’s just that some of us have a harder time understanding than others.

Anyhoo.

The other half and I took off from the homestead early last Thursday morning headed to Ohio for my high school reunion. A little less than twelve hours later, we were in Carbondale Illinois at an Italian fast food place called Fazoli’s, sucking on something resembling chicken and having a good time with the grandchild, the step-daughter and her husband, and the step-son. Was I frazzled after the drive? A little. Between the sports trucks and the “Carnies” on Interstate 40 between Little Rock and West Memphis, we had an adventure.

I have been told time and again that adventure is where you find it. What made the first day of the trip an adventure were the long-haul truckers in what my father used to call “Sports Trucks”, trying to get past a convoy of carnival food trucks headed east.

I’m not going to rag on the truckers too much. They have a lot on their plate, what with limits as to how long they can be on the road and having families back home who want them home a few hours earlier then they usually arrive. I get that. But getting around a convoy of any sort can be frustrating when the fellow in front of you is passing that convoy doing, say, 68 and the truck he’s driving can only do 69. Not only frustrating to the truck drivers, but frustrating to drivers like me, headed to see children and grandchildren in another state.

We managed.

After fighting the clog for nearly an hour and passing the carnie convoy, we decided to pull over at a rest stop and have lunch. I figured that by the time we finished having lunch, the convoy would be past us and we would be clear of the mess, headed to our first destination. No problems.

Until the convoy showed up at the rest stop just as we were having our lunch.

Wouldn’t you know it, every available parking space in the truck side of the lot was full, and one of the vehicles belonging to the convoy was taking up a couple of parking spaces on the cars only side of the rest area. And then came the oversized load which could not get past the vehicle from the convoy taking up a couple of parking spaces on the cars only side of the rest area.

My plan to exit, stage right, was impeded by the truck which couldn’t move because of the other vehicle parked in his way. It took about 5 minutes for the vehicle’s driver to realize that he was impeding traffic. We waited another five minutes after the lane was cleared before moving on.

Fortunately, that was the most frustrating moment for most of the rest of the trip up and back. There were moments spent with orange barrels (still in-season) and the usual idiots deciding that they preferred driving in the left lane – that is, until 100 yards from where they need to exit. But that’s another story.

I had a chat with Dave, a friend of mine from high school, over lunch at a small family cafe in Kentucky. He and I came to the conclusion that sometimes, getting off the Interstate and using federal or state highways is the way to go.

Even going long distances.

I’ll have to try it sometime.

On the other hand, you miss some of the more interesting roadside attractions, like Uranus Missouri.

It’s a tourist trap. Plain and simple. I’ve been there twice in the past four months because of the wordplay involved.

I’m a sucker for wordplay.

With slogans like, “The best fudge in the world comes from Uranus,” you can understand the number of jokes coming out of the place. Some people may be offended. I get it. There are others like me who appreciate the word play, offensive as the word play may seem. At any rate, the place is colorful and kitschy all at once. And the fudge, well, it’s passable. The fudge at Mackinac Island seemed better, but the last time I went there was many moons ago and another thousand miles out of our way for this trip.

At any rate, we’re back. The fudge is gone, and what we have are memories… something I will blog about in another day or two.

Be Seeing You!