More Tao of Chris

I mentioned in an earlier post how little I like travelling on Interstates, yet the last post we spent a lot of time on Interstates. In defense of the route, at the time it just seemed the right way to go. Like I also mentioned in an earlier post, I like having something to look forward to. Be it stopping at a Wal Mart along the way, eating at a Cracker Barrel, staying at Holiday Inns, whatever. You need to find certain traditions that you can look forward to on every trip. It can be any of the things just listed, or going to a certain city whenever you go a certain direction, taking certain roads in certain areas, starting each trip on the same stretch of road, whatever. It doesn't matter. Sometimes it's the little stuff that makes the trip enjoyable. Sometimes it keeps it from being a crappy trip. My thing the past couple trips, is to go through cities that are in my home area, have my last name, are names of different countries or foreign cities, stuff like that. It makes for a more interesting trip. Plus it gives me and the Uncle something to joke about. Because eventually you are going to run out of things to talk about, even if you have talk radio going on. Sometimes you're not going to want to talk. The hardest part for me has always been planning a route in a state or a part of a state I've never been through. Trying to stay away from "hey look another field of corn/beans." Or "Gee what an insanely flat, boring stretch of road." So, I try to steer us near rivers, national forests, or just anything that won't just be interstate type driving. And I'm not afraid to scrap my route. If a stretch of pavement isn't doing it for me, I look for a place to turn off and try and get us something to look at that will still get us sort of where I think we should end up. My routes are good about 95% of the time. Every now and then it's "what was I thinking?" But, when I'm not enjoying the scenery, I'm checking the map. We go through a city, I find it on the map so I know where we are in relation to our next turn. Sometimes by doing that, I find a more interesting route. I'm good enough with the map that I can eyeball how long we're going to be on a road within about 3 minutes. Road signs, that's a different story. Something to remember: in Arkansas, some roads have the highway number then a little "s" after it. It made sense after I figured it out, but it didn't dawn on me at first what the "s" stood for. It stands for "spur". You don't necessarily want those. You'll end up losing a few minutes which, while not really a big deal, usually ends up with you having to backtrack a few miles.