Road Trippin

By Ben Smith:

Have you ever done something with good intentions only to get halfway through and realize just how stupid you are? I’m talking about one of those moments where you say to yourself, “I’m a complete moron. What was I thinking?” Since I consider myself an overachiever, I probably have more of these moments than the average person with an IQ above room temperature. As a matter of fact, I probably have at least two to three of these per week. However, this last one really takes the cake.

Let me begin by making a couple of things very clear. One, I’m not afraid of flying at all. I’m a percentages kind of guy so I know the odds of dying in a plane crash are way lower than being killed in a car wreck. I’d say the only caveat to that is there is a possibility that you limp away from an accident in a vehicle. If your plane falls out of the sky you’re probably not going to be able to write about it later. Still, flying doesn’t bother me. The second thing I want to make crystal clear, which is about half of the reason for this article, is that I absolutely hate public transportation. Whether that be a bus, train, or plane, I hate being on someone else’s timeline and depending on them to get me to where I’m going. And I refuse to Uber, or ride share, or whatever car service you people use.

Now that those two things have been established, I’ll explain why I’m an idiot. I drove from Hattiesburg, Mississippi to Chicago, Illinois and back. Yes, that’s over twenty-four hours of drive time for what would have been about five hours of flight time. I have already established the first reason for doing this with my disdain for public transportation. The second reason, and the one I thought to be most logical for anyone that questioned what in the heck was I thinking, was that I’d never driven through that part of the country before and I wanted to see what it was like. Seemed like a good idea when I thought it out. Turned out to be one of the dumber things that I’ve done in a long time.

I broke the trip to Chicago into two days, which wasn’t that bad. The worst part of that drive was I felt like I’d never get out of Mississippi. Once I hit Memphis and crossed the Mississippi River the adventure was on. I will admit that by the time I crossed the Mississippi again from Missouri into Illinois I’d gotten a little tired of corn fields. I ended up going about seven and a half hours the first day and stopping for the night. It’s probably a good idea I stopped when I did because for the next several hours thunderstorms rolled through the area with some of the heaviest rain I’ve seen in a while. It would have been a pretty miserable drive through that mess, especially on roads I was unfamiliar with.

If I’d have known that the second day of driving was going to be worse, even though it was shorter, than the first day I would have definitely flown. The drive from Hattiesburg to Memphis is pretty grueling in terms of scenery but it’s beautiful compared to driving almost the length of Illinois. If you’re wondering what that drive looks like, I can sum it up with one word…corn. Both sides of the highway for as far as you can see and then some. Nothing but corn. If the entire road system of Illinois wasn’t under construction you could set your cruise control, point your vehicle north, and take a nap. When I finally began to re-enter civilization, my trip through the corn fields turned into a NASCAR race. It felt like I went from the most boring, stress free driving ever to trying to beat a checkered flag to get into Chicago. I pretty much white knuckled the last thirty minutes of the trip trying not to die.

I spent the next few days west of Chicago in one of the most affluent areas of the United States. If you weren’t driving a Tesla and wearing a suit you were probably a visitor. Yeah, I was probably a little out of place. In a lot of ways, I felt like I was in a foreign country. For instance, I popped into a little hamburger joint, native to only Chicago one day. There was a sign on the menu above that read, “Our meat is Zabiha halal.”  I asked the guy behind the counter what that meant and he explained that it meant the meat had been slaughtered in accordance with Islamic dietary laws. If you want more information on that, go look it up. It’s the one thing I can think of right now that is more stupid than driving from Hattiesburg to Chicago. The burger was pretty good, though.

The entire time I was there I couldn’t help but think about that trip back home. This time there would be no breaking it up into two days. I was going to muscle through and get back in one day. So, I rolled out of Chicago like I was the Bandit, only I didn’t have four hundred cases of Coors beer, just some Muslim beef instead. I’m joking, I didn’t bootleg any Zabiha halal. 

Folks, let me tell you something. I may never eat corn again after making this drive. I didn’t even eat any on the trip, but I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime. If I thought the trip up was tough, the trip back almost broke me. And if I thought my wife would have come and picked me up I would have quit about four hours into the trip. Nevertheless, I trudged on along picking up mile after mile. But once I crossed that Mississippi River in Memphis my spirits lifted. And once I saw that Mississippi sign I could have skipped home the rest of the way. I like seeing and visiting new places and learning new things, but Mississippi I love you. You will never not be home to me!