Go Through Atlanta?!?!

[Catholic Priest’s odd journey from Tampa, Florida to Redfield, Kansas. Part II] 

Before starting out toward Kansas, I had been speaking with some friends about the various routes I could take. “You have to go through Memphis,” they said, “because Waze says that they have the best gas prices!” Wait, wait, that’s not what happened. I don’t know where that silly idea came from. 

In reality I had mentioned to them that two of the three routes Google Maps had suggested took me straight through Atlanta before branching out, one taking me through, you guessed it, Memphis, and the other through Nashville. Although the third route was longer, I was thinking about taking it and avoiding getting even close to Atlanta, as I have always had nothing but traffic problems there. This third way would take me through the Florida panhandle before turning north somewhere in Alabama and then through—drumroll, please—Memphis on the way to Redfield. 

To my surprise, my friends, instead of confirming my choice, said, “Go through Atlanta.” Yes, the bane of my many trips up to Michigan to visit family in past decades, is now a fine drive, I was told. “Staying on 75 is even faster than taking the bypass,” they claimed with straight faces, taking Google’s side rather than mine. “There’s no more construction going on and there are six lanes of traffic open. And you’ll be traveling through on a Sunday afternoon, so traffic will be light, anyway.” 

That conversation was going through my head as I approached the west Atlanta bypass. Google Maps, now having taken the place of the malfunctioning Waze, was showing the same thing that I had been told. Easy driving straight through Atlanta, even if I was going to veer west toward Memphis right in the middle of the city. So I did what I knew I shouldn’t do. I passed the western bypass exit and headed straight through. It’s Sunday afternoon, I assured myself. Traffic is fine, I said. Maps says this is the best route and shows clear traffic all the way. Put your past bad experiences behind you, relax, and enjoy the ride. Like everyone who has ever been on the dark side of the confession screen, I managed to convince myself that doing the wrong thing was somehow better than doing what I knew to be right.

I put the peer pressure of a week-old conversation plus the reliance on the already proven-to-be-unreliable technology ahead of common sense. That idiotic thinking occupied my brain until I came to a complete stop just a short distance up the road. Six lanes of traffic all sitting together in one massive clump as if all of us had been punked by friends. “Your friends told you to go straight through, too, huh?” we (in my mind) called out to each other as it dawned on us what had happened. “Yeah, the guy in the Chevy next to me said his friends told him the same thing, as well.” After sitting there for a while, swapping stories (and planning revenge), we all started inching our way forward. Go slowly, stop, move a few more feet, stop. What the heck is going on? Google Maps, why didn’t you catch this? It wasn’t long before Maps changed the traffic markings to red. After it was too late.

After ages of creeping along in the traffic jam, I could finally see the problem: the infamous roadside arrow up ahead was indicating that the right lane was closed. Six lanes of traffic merging into five. “Ahh,” said I, “that explains the problems in the right lanes, and the left lanes are probably just slowing down as a sign of compassionate brotherhood, sharing our pain with us even when they don’t have to.”

After the merge point, though, we didn’t speed up. Further down the road, the arrow sign appeared again. Five lanes down to four. But, of course, that was not the end of it. Further still, four lanes merged to become three. There was no construction going on, just multiple lane closures on a late Sunday afternoon. I don’t know how my buddies managed to pull that off, but they got me good.

I had planned on spending the night just past Birmingham but it was already getting dark by the time I passed the west Atlanta bypass that I had chosen not to take.

At least the Douglasville hotel I stayed at had a good wifi connection so I was able to plan the rest of the trip even more carefully. This time the map showed a nice route bypassing Memphis (where I was definitely not going to get gas) and going through Little Rock, Arkansas. If all went well, I would be able to stop by and see Bill and Hillary. Maybe they would put me up for the night and join me for confession and Mass in the morning.

The next morning, I really did set course for Little Rock. Redfield was still over 12 hours away, plus gas and food stops. If I cut that into two days of driving, I could stop in Little Rock, visit the William J. Clinton Library and Museum (I have never been to a Presidential Library before, so I would like to see what makes it so special other than bearing the name of a former President) and maybe even, if I still had time, visit the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum or their Old Statehouse Museum, both of which are near the Library. I had checked out hotels in the area but didn’t make a reservation, since I didn’t know the area and didn’t want to be stuck in a bad neighborhood. You’ll soon see that it’s a good thing that I didn’t. But not for the reasons I was worried about.