Strange Highways:
I recently took a long trip across the United States, from California to Key West and back. I highly recommend this to anyone who wishes to witness the depravity of this country first-hand.
Everyone asks me which state had the worst roads. California, to be honest, if you mean the physical condition of the tarmac. (Louisiana was a close second.) But the worst driving conditions? Arizona. As luck would have it, we drove through Phoenix on Friday nights both directions, and good God almighty, those people can't drive. I was cut-off, tailgated, high-beamed to death, and nearly sideswiped at least twice. Arizona, my hats off to you: You scared the hell out of a lifelong California driver. May your golf carts run over your children and your dams flood your towns.
The friendliest driving was Texas, no doubt about it you greenhorns. This may surprise some. It surprised me. Everyone on the road was curteous. No one tried to kill me, which was nice. When we first entered the state, a large road sign proclaimed "Drive Safe, the Texas Way", and my experience lives up to that statement. Texas, my ten-gallon hat's off to you.
(The other road sign we kept seeing -- annoyingly -- was "Don't Mess With Texas." It's an anti-litter campaign, but unfortunately rings of Dixie and the Confederate flag and "The South Shall Rise Again" and all that Dukes of Hazzard crap.)
The scariest moment on the road? The one that occurred when we were parked at a gas station in the shadow of a Whataburger. A white Cadillac -- an albino land shark -- drove up to a pump. While the eighty-gallon tank was filling with unleaded supreme, the driver popped open the trunk and located a bottle of Jack Daniels'. He promptly poured it down, the amber liquid gurgling in the bottle the way the old-fashioned tube gas pumps would do, then tossed the empty back in the trunk and sped off for points unknown.
We gave him a ten-minute head start. Whether he was going our way or the other, we wanted to stay clear.
