The nothing

[fbhjr]

One of the hardest parts of the drive north/south for these southern jobs Phoenix does is what we call “the nothing”.
There are large stretches of road where there is nothing to look at. The roads go through rural areas with no lights, no buildings and few other cars.


The worst is the one in southern Virginia/northern North Carolina. When we’re going south we hit it about 1 or 2 in the morning. There is a section of road that lasts about 200 miles where there is only 1 town the whole section. Most of the section goes through pine woods, so all you can see it a long row of pine trees to either side and nothing else for 3 hours in the middle of the night.
Going north we hit a similar one in Maryland about the same time. That one is only about 50 miles long, so not as bad.
The last leg going into Pensacola or Mobile is route 65. From Montgomery to the coast there is very little. Although we almost always hit that one in the daylight, it is also a problem. Not for falling asleep like the others, but because of the accidents.
I don’t know if it is that there is so little to look at along the road or something else, but that section of the road, about 170 miles long, it just littered with debris. It is where the van of folks from Kentucky lost a tire. It is where we saw the SUV roll sideways down the road spraying the road with glass. It is where we see whole chunks of car lying in the road.
These are the areas of the trip that make it hard. Getting through the nothing.
Driving through New York City? Not really a problem. Yeah, lots of traffic. Lots of potholes. Lots of aggressive drivers. But, no worries keeping awake.
Driving through Atlanta? Always traffic no mater when. Badly marked roads where you have to change 3 lanes in ¼ mile to get them. But, no naps there.
200 miles of almost identical pine trees passing in the night while you say “I might see another car or truck about 5 miles ahead”?
That’s what I’d cut out of these trips if I could.