Part III [Little Rock, Black Rock, Classic Rock, What’s the Difference?]

 Part III [Little Rock, Black Rock, Classic Rock, What’s the Difference?]

I left off last week, if you have been following my story, driving out of a hotel in Douglasville, Georgia. I had checked out the route I wanted to travel and set Google Maps to take me to Little Rock, Arkansas. No, I didn’t go back to Waze, even though Google Maps had failed to warn me about the traffic backup in Atlanta. After all, I thought, Waze might have missed it, too, for perhaps it happened just at the exact time that I arrived. Waze was still in a temporary time-out after the gas station fiasco of the first day. The thing it does so much better than Google Maps wasn’t of much interest to me at this time, anyway. 

It outshines Google Maps when showing police up ahead, but it seemed silly to worry about them, for, since shortly after hitting the Georgia State Line, most of the traffic (including me) slowed down to the posted speed limit, or at least pretty darn close. There were police everywhere, it seemed, and almost all of them had somebody pulled over. Must have been the Florida drivers who didn’t get the message. Driving the speed limit, by the way, was the norm throughout this trip outside of Florida. I’m sure not used to that!

Anyway, just before pulling out on the road, I also started the podcast app I had downloaded before leaving Tampa. Somebody had suggested that I download some of these things to listen to on the journey. Believe it or not, I had never downloaded a podcast before (my car, after all, has both a CD player and cassette tape player, so I never needed to listen to a podcast while driving) so I had to first download a podcast app and then search for something worthwhile. I had found St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life and downloaded it. OK, so it’s not a podcast but an audiobook, but, what the hey, it’s as close as this old geezer got.

Off I went on my new day’s adventure. But the audiobook wasn’t playing exactly like I thought it would. Although some readers had recorded more than one chapter, most were read by different readers with different voices, inflections, pronunciations, accents, volume, and other characteristics so it wasn’t a smooth-flowing book-reading. Worse, I had to listen to an introduction to LibriVox before each chapter started. I assume that’s normal but was annoying when I was listening all day long to a book with over 100 chapters. Worse still was that the chapters were not playing in order!

I tried to figure it out when at a rest stop one time, but the way it was listed on the phone I couldn’t see which chapter was playing and which was next, so I just continued listening attentively trying to put together thoughts from Book 3, Chapter 41, then Book 1, Chapter 7, followed by Book 5, Chapter 16... and so on.

It became quite amusing as well as a challenge, trying to fit the pieces all together in my brain, and I did not get bored with it the whole day. But it did break my concentration on navigating, though I was following Maps for a long drive that was already plotted and set, so I didn’t really need to concentrate on that. Right?

I thought I was going to bypass Memphis but the signs kept telling me it was getting closer. No big deal. I had read the stupid map (who’s calling who stupid?) so many times and checked out so many routes that they were all blurred together. I-20 to Birmingham to I-22 for many more hours and finally, I-269. That must be the Memphis bypass. I thought I was missing the city completely, but no, I-269 hit I-55 and went straight through. Oh, well. It was an easy drive.

I-55 connected to I-555 which then just ended. The road continued, of course, but now I was on Highway 63, which was strange because I was pretty sure (but not positive) that I should be on the Interstate straight through to Little Rock. But I was enjoying the Devout Life concentration book-game, and the ride was a nice one, so I just kept going. Signs for cities without any city being visible appeared at various intervals. Bono, Sedgwick, Hoxie, Walnut Ridge. None of them rang a bell. Finally, I saw a sign for Black Rock. 

That one didn’t ring a bell but it set off bells. Wrong Rock. I finally figured that something must be out of whack. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But somewhere along the line Google Maps decided to bypass Little Rock and take me straight to Redfield. Little Rock was now two hours in the wrong direction. Good thing I didn’t make that hotel reservation! (May it be God’s will that another priest takes up the challenge of bringing the Clintons into the Faith. No joke.)

Not having seen any signs of city life for quite a while, I wondered if there would be a hotel somewhere up ahead or if I would just have to drive straight through the night. Fortunately, Google Maps showed a highly recommended old motel up ahead in Cherokee Village. Hoping that Maps was better at finding motels than finding directions, I drove on.

The Village Inn (not the pancake house) was just an old roadside motel but nicely kept. The woman greeting me had a great sense of humor and her dog was as friendly as can be. Everything was clean, the room smelled nice (like a hotel, not like an ashtray or bathroom, as can sometimes happen in these old places) and after settling in it was time to eat. An online search showed a number of surprisingly good-sounding restaurants nearby but they were all about to close. I opted to get a pizza from the local convenience store. It was good enough to get me through the night.

Tomorrow I will finally make it to Kansas. At least, such was the plan.