The Creepiest Road in America?

It's 7:51 a.m and I'm filling my Kum & Go travel mug at Tuckers Box Coffee house in White River Junction, New Hampshire. They serve quite a good cup of drip courtesy of the quirky Vermont hippies who must run Green Mountain Roasters. The stiff cup along with a beautiful sunrise is quickly pulling me from the dour state I've been in since leaving Chicago and crossing through the first toll on the I80/90 toll road that runs east west from Chicago to somewhere in NY. I drove this stretch last year and experienced the same emotions. When you cross through the first booth you take a ticket and in return for access you give up your freedom and enter into a controlled and characterless world of claustrophobia. There is no private enterprise along the six hundred mile stretch, only an occasional state owned gas and rest area every forty to sixty miles. These state owned rest and refueling areas allow a few fast food corporations to conduct business within their feeding compounds, though every time I walked through one every vendor was shut up tight. There were hundreds of wary travelers pacing around the tiled great room, waiting in line to drink out of the turbid water fountain like strung out zombies. The gas pumps have no attendant controlling them, it's card only. What if a man only has cash and is running low on fossilised dinosaur? From what I can tell, this poor man is out of luck, for the next possible exit is most likely twenty miles away. On his quest for a gas station that will take cash he will drive under ten or twenty overpasses with cars and life on them but he will have no way to access them. There are very few ways to get out of the the toll road bubble and it's frustrating because life and freedom is literally a stones throw away. In Nebraska we got off the interstate, drove to a small town and took a run. In Iowa we did the same. Both places have a unique character, different that what I'm used to but still character. Looking back I don't have any idea what states I drove through yesturday. I think they were Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, but how would I know. For ten hours I hardly saw a town as the sides of the road are built up quite high as to make sure no one sees what's beyond their boundaries. For ten hours I pointed the diesel east on a highly efficient transport system and now looking back I feel like I missed out on a whole section of country. And what do I get at the end of this transport portal? A $38 toll fee! I pulled off at the first exit and saw a sign that read, "free coffee with fill up." I jumped at the opportunity, topped off the truck and stumbled into the fill station. A nice, plump, mostly toothless attendant filled my cup and asked me in a strong eastern accent where I had come from. I told her I had been driving the 80/90 toll road all night and she smiled and laughed, "you look a little tired, most are by the time they get here." I think I'll take I70 on the way home. I look forward to having the option to exit the interstate and meet some fine Midwestern folk in the states that were taken from me last night.

Doug "haven't slept in 30 hours" Dale