When we lived in Southern California, or as it’s known to the locals “SoCal,” we were close enough to Sunshine and Mumbles that we were required to drive to their house two or three times per year for a visit. And it was one of the most boring commutes I’ve ever encountered.
I can’t remember the highway we took, but Toney never forgets these things. So, I’ll be right back… OK, it was Interstate 5, and we took it from the bottom of California, up to Sacramento or thereabouts, and cut across to Reno. And man, was it dull.
There were stretches that were so straight and uneventful, you could theoretically set your cruise control and take a nap. The steering wheel wasn’t even necessary, it could’ve been removed to free up space for the driver. I could’ve used my laptop, or set up a makeshift table and eaten a full Sunday dinner, at 75 mph.
And then there were the slaughterhouses…
There’s a long section of the journey where both sides of the road are lined with cattle, and cattle death camps. The stench is unbelievable. I grew up near Charleston, WV, surrounded by chemical plants, so I know strange stinks. Oh, I know ’em real good. But that slaughterhouse smell made me gag. It was just so… organic.
When we’d stop to buy gas there, the convenience stores all had a MASSIVE selection of beef jerky. Like, every flavor imaginable, sometimes an entire wall of the stuff. It was a jerky aficionado’s wet dream… And some of it still had hair on one side! Blecch.
Once we reached the Sierra Nevada mountains it turned really pretty (and kinda scary during winter), but before that… crushingly dull and disgustingly scented. I’d have to rank it near the top of my list of Most Unpleasant Stretches of Highway.
What about you? What would you rank at the top of your list? Tell us about it, won’t you?
And since we’re sort of on the subject, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? What stink really sticks out in your mind as especially bad? I’ve smelled plenty of disgusting things, like anyone else, but that slaughterhouse stink was a real standout for some reason. Do you have something like that? Use the comments link below.
And I hate to cut this one so short, but I’ve gotta deal with something before work. So, I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great day, my friends.
I-71 between Columbus and Cincinnati is totally nowheresville! Nothing but the aforementioned outlet malls (one of them is pretty much boarded up) and Kings Island. Nasty smells are also found on I-71. Coming into Columbus from the south is the county landfill (the second highest point in the county–true!) and then you roll right past the water treatment plant. Nothing says “Welcome to the Capital of Ohio” like the smells of garbage and bodily functions!
Vomit and rancid herring? We have a winner!
I-20 between El Paso and Dallas is one boring heck road. I once drove ~200 miles along there on cruise control without having to touch a pedal. Only stopped because the car needed fuel. It has the added bonus of nice chewy petrochemical air too.
The Hatfield brand pig slaughterhouse (in Hatfield, PA) can smell pretty sickening. I have to drive past there fairly often. I like my pig products but I don’t buy Hatfield brand stuff – irrational I know, like the other pig slaughterhouses are any better.
Sacramento to Reno is an awesome drive in a good car!
I was wondering if someone would mention Hatfield. Uck. Nasty.
I think the worst stretch of road I’ve been on has to be the ride from Sprinfield, IL to Chicago on I57, it’s just 1 straight line, and grass as far as the eye can see for 3 hours…and I don’t know the name of the road, but we had to drive a pretty long (5 hours) stretch of road through Oklahoma and it the worst part about driving home from Cali. For some reason, there were barely any street lamps so it was pitch black, we got pulled over by a dyke cop for going too slow in the fast lane but we were going 65 in a 60, shortly after, we both almost shit our pants when we barely dodged a freshly dead buck in the middle of the pitch black highway. When we wanted to stop, there was a toll on the exit ramps, and when we did finally stop the gas station was a long decayed, desolate shack straight out of a horror movie. There were no signs or anything indicating that it was closed. So we had to drive another half hour before finally finding a rest area. 2 cops were in there, and made sure to follow us around the rest area like we were out to rob the place…Needless to say, as soon as we got to Missouri, we were instantly happier. Worst smell: Gary, Indiana.
@ Dave…Sorry Farty/Jason…the drive the panhandle was also horrid. I’ve never seen so much nothing in my life.
I said @ Dave in reference to your Texas comment…since I didn’t make much sense in my last post.
@Tilly…Hahahaha, my boyfriend works in one of those steel mills! lol. I put Gary before I even read your post. Awesome.
The only thing about Gary is that it’s not the steel mills that make Gary sad. The mills have to be guarded by heavy security. It’s the people that live there, or sell crack and murder people there, or whatever that make it a miserable and scary place. My boyfriend often tells me stories of toothless hookers that offer hand jobs for cigarettes, and crackheads wandering the streets like vampires. It’s quite a place. Sorry for the 87 posts.
3 week dead august body is pretty gross.
The worst is probably the Mead plant in Chillicothe (if it’s still there), the whole town smells like a cabbage fart.
I agree on the Cincy to Columbus trip. Boring. My ex doesn’t think it’s so bad but I think she was just being contrarian.
On I-75 in Cincy is P&G and also a flavoring plant as well as I believe Jim Beam. Sometimes it smells nice. Sometimes it smells like a circus clowns’ trailer.
Worst drive ever? NASCAR. 500 miles of nothing but left turns, jerk drivers, and the same assholes at every gas station.
Oh, I’ve done that stretch of I-5 (“The 5” for SoCal folks) and the trick is to try to beat your time from the previous trip.
“Worst drive ever? NASCAR. 500 miles of nothing but left turns, jerk drivers, and the same assholes at every gas station.”
t-storm..yeah…but every now and then you get to sniff Danika Patrick’s exahaust.
Some people think the smell of a crematorium is offensive, but I’ll always associate it with my college graduation ceremony. In 110 degree heat. And 99% humidity.
So, the smell of success, to me, equals Gramma roasting in the oven at the funeral home just across the street from the JMU quad. Tayshtee!
Route 85 out of NC is pretty dang boring. Nothing but Carolina pines to look at, which are 50 feet tall and nothing but stalk. It’s like being an ant in a cornfield.
Also – Elizabeth, NJ in 1978. On our yearly trips to LI for Thanksgiving we came to know that town as ‘the toilet testing plant’ for good reason.
I used to drive I-70 from Columbus to Illinois for school. The stretch through Indiana is the most boring, desolate piece on interstate I’ve ever been on. I recently made the same trip after about 30 years, and the same houses are there, just dilapidated, and looking like they hadn’t been painted since I went to college. Farming doesn’t pay. Combines and tractors rusting in the fields show how bad the Indiana economy must be. Why go to a casino when you can buy a farm? It’s the biggest gamble there is, and I guarantee you’ll lose your money!
Yeah, Danica Patrick. what’s that other chick in NASCAR? Oh yeah, Jeff Gordon.
Wow, I remember this episode right after I was married. My wife’s family had some of those 55 gallon blue plastic barrels with food storage in the back shed. The shed had leaked and a barrel full of powered milk sacks had soaked up some water. May turned into August and nobody in the house could take it anymore. I had a horrible stuffed up nose, so I volunteered to “do the deed.” Of course, as soon as I got back there and start rolling them around, I heard this puking. I looked out and saw my backyard neighbor in his lawn puking his guts out. A moment later his wife ran out of the house and started puking too. As I rolled one of the barrels around front to my trailer, I saw a neighbor four or five house down run outside, flip me off, and jump in his car and leave. As I drove down the highway, there was this huge gap behind me in both lanes. People would “shoot it” around me flipping me off as they passed. The topper though was when I got to the landfill. It was a self-serve deal so there I am in the middle of the landfill dumping these barrels, and I hear from way far away a bulldozer coming. This guy who works there, drives a good 4-5 hundred yards over to me, slides open his window and yells, “Damn, that’s some nasty shit!” priceless. I had to leave my shirt and jeans and drive home in m underwear.
I don’t know but I guess Danika is a shemale. And she plays the part well. I’d talk to her, maybe even buy her an Italian meal. Noodles and whatever? And A Salad? I’m in love with you, whore. Come on, and let’s have a nice life!
Jason / T. Farty McAppleass
Fuckfaces! I love you too. Don’t be jelous!
3 THINGS:
1st:
When I moved from Cincy to the Eastern Shore of Virginia (ESVA?) there was an ummmmm incident. There are an assload of chicken rendering plants in that part of the country (The DelMarVa penninsula, actually) and someone didn’t close the valve on one of the chicken fat rendering tankers and it drove up Va Rt 13 dripping chicken ooze the entire way. The stink was still there 10 days later. They had to lay down sand because cars were spinning out.
2nd:
From the Slobberbone song “I can tell your love is waning”;
‘Cause I can tell your love is waning from the looks and smell of it,
Like getting caught behind a cattle truck and all you smell is shit …
Getting caught behind a cattle truck and all you smell is shit …I don’t know”
3rd:
500 Miles to Memphis in Oklahoma City tonight, rock and or roll.
Wooooooooooooo!
Memphis, we’re all saved there. Go, if you don’t believe me. Have some BBQ Spaghetti. Crazy good. It doesn’t really stink. And there’s a pyramid there. You’ll see it. Where the fuck is Elvis? Memphis. And I visit him often. Gimme a break. Please.
Most boring drive for me, just about any road in Saskatchewan, the Transcanada if I can only pick one.
I remember stopping the truck on a tour one time in the early spring, got out for a smoke, walked 360 degrees around the truck, nothing but wheat stubblefields as far as the eye could see in any direction, nothing else at all, except for an excersise in perspective as the two lanes and hydro poles disappear into infinity in both directions, not a house, not a post, not a bump, not anything. No people or vehicles, didn’t even hear birds, just the truck engine clicking away as it cooled off. It was like being in a post apocalypse movie, or the middle of the ocean, vertigo inducing.
I don’t like the smell from chicken farms, or pigshit fertilized fields, or Hamilton harbour’s steel plants, or pulp mills, but is it just me, or does most of Mexico smell like an old mattress on fire in the rain?
I love you douche nozzles, all of you. You make my day, time and time again. You’re fun! You’re witty! You’re too smart for me! And I love Brittney, Tif, Gretchen, and even John the Basket. He’s clever. I love reading your shit, JTB, and there are others.
@Tstorm…if you’re referring to the Chillicothe in Illinois…it still smells like a cabbage fart. They also have a summercamp festival every year that I’m sure stinks up the poor little town even more, the smell of incense and dirty hippies overpowers the cabbage smells for a weekend in May every year. Personally I love that smell, but that’s just me. Hippies not cabbage.
Actually I meant Chillicothe, OH, but I’ll take your word for Illinois.
Hippie cabbage.
The two worst stretches of highway that come to mind stench wise… US 30 in Plymouth IN and County Road 25a south of Wapakoneta OH. Both are guarded by rendering plants.
Drove from Golden CO to Kansas City once. Not much to see once you drop out of the mile high city.
New worst stench… my Reds over the last two nights.
Really bad smells… Right now all over Wisconsin. There are road kill deer everywhere and I’m guessing the highway department has given up on picking them up because when you drive past one with the windows down in the ridiculous heat and humidity we’ve had, it stays with ya for miles!
The stench from a Vagina full of bad decisions is something that stays with you for a LONG time – and could easily be considered one of he “Most Unpleasant Stretches of Highway”
heh – that sounds more like a Jason post
Quick side question…you all know I’m headed back to Cincy in a week. I go way back to the Crosley Field days and I’m looking at hitting a Reds game with my sister and Madaline (Maddy) who is a Reds freak. Trust me on that. So I’m looking at tickets 9 rows back of the Cicny dugout right on the first base line. $70 a wack. Seem high? They’re playing the Cubs the 29th. Sunday afternoon game. But holy rectal pucker…seventy bucks? I gotta buy four tickets if I’m buying three. Crap. Maybe I’ll have a chance meeting and take someone…dunno? Anybody gonna be around? I got a house there all of a sudden.
That’s it. Now…back to thinking about stuff that smells bad.
I wouldn’t call the NJTP endless, but it is pretty boring for the southern half or 3/4. I’ve driven it dozens, maybe hundreds of times; it’s about two hours end-to-end (MUCH more in traffic). For some outstanding smells, get off at exit 10 and take the Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island, then take a ride through Fresh Kills. For maximum effect, do it in August with the windows open. (For the uninitiated, Fresh Kills is a huge and aromatic landfill.) Or, try getting lost in the Pine Barrens – not boring or smelly, but still unpleasant. Especially with an empty tank and a full bladder.
For boredom, I’ll agree that anything long, straight, flat and featureless qualifies. At one time I thought I’d like to drive the US coast-to-coast, but with each passing year the idea becomes less appealing. Still haven’t done it. Buffalo to Detroit via the 401 was pretty damn boring – it was part of the Albany-to-Chicago nonstop motorcycle odyssey. I can’t imagine some of the drives yez people have described.
Off topic: Most dog owners use the phrase “my dog.” But if the dog in question is a pug, they say “my pug.” I have seen this twice in today’s Comments, but never, anywhere, in reference to any other kind of dog – nobody says “my beagle” or “my golden retriever.” What’s up with that?
.
There’s a Chillicothe in Illinois AND Ohio? That must really fuck the minds of Ed McMahon and Dick Clark when they’re trying to find the winner of the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.
Ed’s been gone a while and Dick is going to have a devil of a time pronouncing the name.
jtb
Wost smell was when I was removing the head (don’t ask) from a deer carcass which had met its demise in the winter, had lain in various states of frozen for 2 months and rotted in the spring heat for about two more. The exterior was a dry leathery husk which didn’t smell all that bad but my god the innards. When the animal split open during the decapitation process the gelatinous goo which was the interior released a stench that is simply indescribable. Worse than a dead human body. Worse than a dead human body pulled from the water. It was so bad and so pervasive that I literally had to burn all my clothing including my boots. You couldn’t wash the stink out.
Ball tickets handled. Ball ticket prices stink. 🙂
Chill: I have my two puggy’s for 10 and 12 years. The are the most animated little clowns, fun, funny and loving…and I have never enjoyed a dog like I have these two. Only a pug owner would understand. I guess the “my pug” thing just goes with the territory.
I have a “Shitsalot”.
When I was a kid growing up in small town, we had to drive 50 miles of fairly twisty roads to go to the dentist, doctor, or do any major shopping. I would always spend the trip carsick, on the verge of tossing, and when we would finally arrive at our destination (The Dalles, OR) we would be greeted by the railroad-tie manufacturing company on the edge of town and the overpowering smell of the creosote they were treated with. GAak.
We used to buy cars at the Fleet Auto Auction in Ft. Wayne. Just to the west was a rendering plant and on the days the wind picked up the whole place smelled like death… nothing like hot dogs for lunch with some rendering plant seasoning.
One of my last big jobs as an electrician was wiring a farrowing barn for new swamp coolers. There’s nothing like going to work in a barn full of hogs on a hot summer morning. For those of you who have never been in a livestock barn the floor is slatted so the excrement goes into a pool underneath the animals. The smell isn’t too bad until they flush the pool then it was time to step outside for a breath of air. If you have a kid that’s not sure if he wants to go to college just get him a job working with pigs! He will be in school before you know it.
Now that I am in NC we have the chicken houses that you can smell way before you get to them.
Not many boring roads up here in the mountains of WNC but 64 going out to the OBX is a LONG ride. Others I have been on include driving through the plains in Illinois and out west. If you want excitement while driving come and drive the Tail of the Dragon! Just watch out for the crashed bikers, this road manages to kill a few during the season.
I dated a woman once that took me home to meet her pugs. Just the idea of those ugly, snorting, wheezing, shit eating, parked car chasing things being around while I am trying to romance her was bad enough that it was our last date.
St. Louis jacks ticket prices up when the Cubs go play at Busch. Prices are $90 if they play the Reds or the Astros and $140 if tey play the Cubs.
the reds pump the tix prices too. they’re known as premium dates.
Fuck the cubs, fuck the bitch ass cards, go Reds.
Apparently I have made the correct desion. Thanks! I fart in their general direction.
Weird…2 smelly Chillicothe’s? The name must be cursed to smell for eternity or something. Ben and I were just having this conversation recently about the festivals we’ve attended and how badly Chillichothe smells and how horrible the festival is. Who wants to camp without their car? Not me. They make you park in a lot and walk with all your shit a mile to the forest. Screw you Chillichothe…
This just in..I have just recieved a complimentay a issue of the”Reader’s Digest'” annual humor issue. Can such a thing even exist? And why is “Reader’s Digest” full of crap you can’t stomach let alone digest?
ummm brittney…. do you know what camping is?
And readers digest is the family circus of literature,
awesome show last night. Plus i got digits….and an address. That part was weird. That’s like some weird law and order shit.
Stinks:
Terre Haute Indiana. There was a reason in the movie “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” that the only stinky-cheese bomb that Nazi/Carl Reiner was able to detonate was there. I had seen the movie tons of times during my youth, & in my late 20’s when I drove down I-70 through TH in the middle of the night, I finally got the joke, & laughed aloud as my nostrils were assaulted.
Nacogdoches Texas. A beautiful town in the pineywoods of East Texas, but hotter than Satan’s buttcrack in the Summer. In the late 70s, THere were 2 chicken plants on the south side of town, Holly Farms & Herider Farms. During the summer months at about 2-3 in the afternoon, the humid, southern gulf breeze would begin to distribute the aroma of rotting chicken carcasses that were being heated up in large metal dumpsters throughout the town. Savagely putrid.
Boring:
I-20/10 from Dallas to LA is a barren landscape of nothing 95% of the time. At least between Odessa & El Paso, they jack up the speed limit to 80 to make it mildly interesting.
The most boring ever was highway switching from Abilene, TX to Denver, CO. Every 40 miles I would have to cheer myself up with a self-administered cockpunch. God awful.
on CNN today 4 surprising reasons women can’t lose weight (And I’ll accept the go fuck yourself t-storm in advance):
Cheesecake
Not doing housework that they should be doing
Suffrage
Grey’s Anatomy
i think you can get that cock punch at the chicken plants.
@Tstorm, yes. Very much.