Here’s something for some Friday conversation:
Personally, I-16 from Macon to Savannah isn’t a fun one, but I-22 from Birmingham to Tunica was so long and boring I swore I’d never do it again. I-82 from Tuscaloosa heading over to Starkville wasn’t anything to write home about, either, an I’ve done that one several times.
The ultimate one: I-70 from Kansas City to Bouder. Yeesh. Nothing changes for HOURS.
What’re your thoughts? What’s the loneliest, boring-ist stretches of highway.
I thought I-20 westbound from Ft Worth until it meets I-10 was pretty damn boring. When you cross into to Texas, headed to California, and the first mile marker you see is 635, you know you’re in for a long ride. And that’s just until you get to I-10. I’d even extend my stretch of boring road from Ft Worth to El Paso. It doesn’t help matters that I was driving, solo, in a 1983 Mazda RX7 that had compression issues. Those rotary engines aren’t easy to repair. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that was the reason I had to push start the damn thing every morning. But that’s a story for another time, let’s just call it a huge learning experience for a 21 year old Marine Corporal. It matters where you buy your vehicles!
GDSE
Most depressing road sign in America…I-10 entering Texas near Beaumont and it reads “El Paso 635 miles”.
895 miles.
And y’all are some boring ass people if you don’t love a good road trip! Get off the damned interstate.
Highway 83 going from the Texas Mexico border is called the road to nowhere because it goes straight up through all those “fly-over” states.
And Highway 50 in Nevada is known as the loneliest road in America. Hundreds of miles with out stops.
I’m out here driving around Big Bend in Texas. Gorgeous, great driving roads, and nothing for miles and miles and miles. I love it! Great antidote to Houston.
In my defense, I had someplace to be. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to Twentynine Palms because of the scenery and the bounty of attractive single women.
LOL! Fair enough.
I was in BB two months ago. First time there. We loved it! And I didn’t mind the drive Houston.
*from Houston
Its a great drive if you take Hwy 90.
I-10 between I-75 and Jax perimeter.
Saw a Land Rover suv with Texas plates ahead of us gently slide into the median after driver must’ve dozed off. Lucky he woke and kept control.
Anywhere on I-10 between Jacksonville and Pensacola.
I-22 between Birmingham and Tupelo is pretty bad, but nothing compared to the stretches experienced driving from Atlanta to Boulder, CO when I took my car to school my sophomore year and then drove it back after graduation. I remember when driving back home I had a book on tape that I started east of Denver and when it was over I had not made much progress through Kansas on I-70. Holy sh!t what a stretch that is! Sad thing is I never even got to see the five legged donkey or the world’s largest prairie dog.
Yep. You hit the Kansas border and it seems like you don’t hit the other border until a day later. And it’s almost straight as an arrow. Eventually you see the Rockies in the distance and think your close, until you realize you’ve been seeing the Rockies in the distance for 8 hours and you’re not as close as you think.
Yeah, I-22 is pretty miserable. Made the drive from Atlanta to Memphis more than once to see the better-half when she still lived in Memphis. Fortunately, it didn’t take a whole hell of a lot of convincing to get her to move East.
If I16 was any longer it would make me slash my wrists.
At least it is better than it used to be back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. That damn stretch when you were a kid in the way back of the station wagon with no seatbelt was brutal with a speed limit of 55mph. My mom would always say driving to HHI from Atlanta, ” Okay, we are in Macon. Either we stop here to eat at S&S Cafeteria or we can stop at Me-Ma’s Truck stop in about 30 minutes. After that there is nothing until we get to I-95 except Sweat’s BBQ, but it will be closed by the time we pass by that exit”.
At least now there are a few eating options between Macon and I-95. If you haven’t done it in awhile from Atlanta be aware they have redone that merge to I-16 from I-75 and the lanes to I-16 are on the opposite they used to be on in Macon.
I-16 can go and bleep itself. Nothing but pine trees and state troopers for 4-ish hours.
I can’t speak on some others but I’ve done I-16 from Macon to Savannah over a hundred times. It sux.
I drove from ATl to Fort Worth and back every couple of weeks in the early 80s. I-20 through Louisiana and Texas was tie the steering wheel straight, put a brick on the accelerator, and go to sleep.
All good (bad?) choices but hands down is the entire f*ing state of Texas particularly anything headed to Lubbock or Amarillo. 2nd place is crossing into New Mexico which is waaaayyyy bigger than you think and the roads so flat and straight you swear you can see both coasts simultaneously.
I hate interstates. Another one that sux to me is I-10 West anywhere from Tallahassee through Texas.
When my brother went through his midlife crisis, he rode his Harley from ATL to Jacksonville to get on I-10 and take it to Los Angeles, by himself. He just wanted to say he took one road across the country. I can’t imagine the boredom.
I-10 Tallahassee to Jax
I-90 entire state of South Dakota
Jim L Gillis Hwy (aka I-16)
Once met a naked man head on @ 7am walking down the west bound lane of I-16 near Dublin . Right down the center line! Had to slow down and dodge his stupid ass. Have seen some horrific wrecks on I-16. A lot of wrong way driving from late night drunks. The naked man story might elevate I-16 to legendary status for me personally!
Never saw any naked folks along that stretch, but at night I am always fearful I’m going to hit one of the 10 million deer along that stretch.
Baxley to Jesup to SSI after 10pm in the fall is crawling with deer. I mean like whole herds grazing 5 feet off the roadway. I’m not totally ignorant about deer, but that late night trip to SSI for the Florida game was an eye opener.
All of South Georgia is a minefield of deer. My sister and her family live about 10 miles outside of Statesboro. My youngest nephew was on his way home just got his 5th deer with a car so now he is a Deer Ace. Totaled the car but he was ok. My sis, BIL, and other nephews all have kills as well. They have the body shop on speed dial.
Once saw a man lying in the grass on the side of the road near the Georgia Southern exit. I’d like to think he was just a drunk who passed out, but it’s a long way from campus and I’m not sure he was just sleeping.
I’ll throw in another one from the Magnolia state. Traveling due north into the Mississippi Delta out of Yazoo City to Clarksdale, MS was a trip through one of the most desolate (and impoverished) areas anywhere in the country. It may have been the birthplace of the blues, but I can see why everybody got the hell out of dodge as soon as they were able…..
Not everybody got the hell out of dodge. I love the Delta. My people are from there, still there, and I spent a lot of time in the Delta growing up. These days I suppose I look at it the same way a tourist looks at a beach town. I’m only there when I want to be now, so I see what I want to see, yeah?
Part of me sees the piss poorness that a portion of the populace lives in. Lake Providence Louisiana (for example) was never a thriving metropolis, but it wasn’t blighted like it is now. I have some thoughts, but this isn’t the playpen.
But it is a special place. There’s nowhere like it in the world. After frost, reams of waterfowl falling in on their way south is truly a sight to behold. In the spring when farming gets underway the potential for production astounds. When the Mississippi is in flood, only the roads and padded up houses are above water, levees be damned. Then the water is gone and life goes on.
I wish I had better words, but I still have a little of the cadence in my speech and that black dirt still feels a bit like home.
I65, I16, I10 75-JAX, I20 Columbia -Florence, Florida turnpike Orlando to the coast
The Turnpike was the dullest drive ever in the 60s. You could smell Orlando because pre-Disney it was miles of orange groves. Very pleasant. Yeehaw Junction to Vero Beach was flat, dark, and booooorrrrring.
I’ve made that 1-16 drive literally hundreds of times. I started back when the interstate ended in Soperton and didn’t pick back up until Bloomingdale road just outside Savannah. It used to be even more boring than it is today. On the other hand I’ve been stopped doing 100 mph and not ticketed. Just told to slow down. At the time, there was literally no other car in sight and no vehicles passed us during the stop.
I was part of appraisal teams valuing right of was for the future I16 and it was some boring country. Today the Hyundai Meta Plant is a sight to behold.
Any stretch of interstate in Texas west of SanAntonio or Fort Worth does not offer a lot of change of scenery. Fortunately, once you get out into West Texas the speed limit is 80 MPH so you can cover a lot of ground in a hurry.
We always used to joke (and some people/family members claimed to have done it, pre-interstates of course) about taking Highway 80 all the way from the old Arby’s on Tybee to San Diego…
When people did that back in the day, I would like to know how many speed traps nailed them for a little $$$ along the way. Back in those days that funded a lot of small towns. 301 in South Georgia (Ludowici) was notorious for that and even up to the early 2000’s in North Florida (Waldo and Lawtey)
Ludowici is the reason you rarely get a ticket in Georgia if you’re less than 10mph over the speed limit. In a court case their speed gun clocked a tree at 10 mph.
Strangely, the tree that owns itself has never moved….
http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/ludowici.htm
My dad’s hometown
I don’t mind I-22 from BHM to Memphis. There are a few stretches of rolling hills and almost no traffic. I’ve put a lot of miles on that highway! If you think that’s bad, you should’ve made that drive before they put in the 4 lane.
The stretch I’ve hated the most for the longest is I-40 Memphis to Little Rock.
I-16 in totality, I-20 from the Covington area to Disgusta (and then on to Columbia SC), the Florida Turnpike from Wildwood to Miami, I-75 from Miami to Naples. Those are four of the longest, most boring stretches I have ever driven.
I 65 from mobile to Montgomery is boring. But it’s also dangerous, fatal wrecks every day. Awful stretch of road.
Agree wholeheartedly.
For the two lane variety; highway through Tate’s Hell Forest in the Florida panhandle can be grueling with endless pine forests and thousands of deer!!
I-77 between Charlotte & Columbia, and then on down to Charleston. Only good thing about that stretch is getting to Williams-Brice to see the Dawgs play.
The stretch of interstate from Louisville to Indy was pretty barren and boring, but the Inner Munson and feeling of existential dread probably didn’t help either…..
Having driven on nearly every route mentioned here (Nothing in Texas or the southwest), my take on some of the suggestions and not in any order:
I-16 Macon to Savannah: Drudgery. Just by Dawg miserable, with equally miserable Constabulary that obviously drew the short straw.
I-95 St. Augustine to Miami: Breathtaking and not in a good way.
I-22 Birmingham to Memphis: Great ride now. Back in the 2 lane days pretty miserable, the “Hot Nut Hut” was never open and Gu-inn versus Guinn is very, very alabama. Wild Bills has killer fried stuff.
I-70 from anywhere in Kansas to Denver: I drove it one night on the way to a hunt in western Colorado, with 3 snoring buddies in the truck. I drove for an hour without seeing a light other than the headlights. Got Sr. riding shotgun woke up in a fright at some point and punched me to get my attention, dreaming I had fallen asleep. That old fucker packed a wallop. Damn.
US 61 Memphis to Clarksdale and points south: The Delta is an amazing ride, if you know what you are looking at. Love it.
I-75 Atlanta to Tampa: UGH.
Thanks for the post. It brings back some great memories.