The first thing I see when I wake up is Morris. I squint against the white morning light, trying to read the billboard that towers above our pathetic (but surprisingly comfortable) camp site:
“HURT in an Accident?”
Call Morris Pittman, Attorney at Law
I cringe as Morris eagerly smiles at me. It’s too early for billboards, but that’s what we get for camping next to the interstate. It’s mid-morning, and the wholesale furniture store that we camped behind is surely open by now. Nick and I pack up our dewy gear and trudge along the crowded highway – a pipeline of the machine that is urban sprawl.
We’ve been in the Atlanta metro area for almost ten days, and now we’re making a run (slow walk) for the Appalachian Mountains. A week in the endless sprawl and a late night of walking has left us exhausted, mentally drained, and… hungry. Luckily, we can see at least twelve chain restaurants from the intersection we are dumbly standing in. The arches of McDonald’s smile brightly as always, but today, the huge sign advertising a $5.99 Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet entices us.
Apparently, the sign is printed in a font that only men can read, because every booth and table inside is packed with large males. We eagerly join the other men in a furious assault on greasy dough. Stressed waitresses sling hot pizzas onto the shiny metal buffet as fast as the swarms of men can pile their slices onto tiny plastic plates. Conversations and southern drawls are muted by ravenous, cheesy chewing. Construction workers, bankers and walkers work in silent, deadly, unison, leaving a battlefield of dismembered crusts and muddy boot prints in the dining room.
Eventually, the siege slows to sluggish trickle, and everyone (else) goes back to work. Feeling full (way too full), we leave, slowly making our way north. We cross over pulsing interstate highways where massive trucks hurtle towards the next spoke of the spinning sprawl wheel, and walk past new subdivisions advertising private lakes and security gates.
We first saw the sprawl ten days ago, after a week in rural Alabama. It was initially comforting to see the billboards and the golden arches, and know that in a few minutes I would be taking a McDump and logging onto free McWifi. But the comfort quickly fades. The thrill of McEverything and reclining movie theater seats wears thin, and there is nothing left for us walkers but to keep moving.
In the sprawl, I cease to think. We mindlessly wander from fast-food restaurant to movie theater to department store, following our senses through the concrete labyrinth of stimulation. The sprawl blurs past our numbed minds, and I think about something the country singer we met in Florida said:
“I’d love to be bored again.”
I ponder her words as we struggle through the suburban wilderness, gazing with dull eyes at billboard forests and wading into overflowing rivers of honking cars.
The only problem with the sprawl is that there are no problems. It’s a system – a beautifully efficient and effective system. In the Mall of Georgia, I passively hope that someone will mess up my order at the food court, ring up a purchase incorrectly – anything that we could discuss, any reason to slow down for a moment. But nothing goes wrong, no one slips up. All the pieces work seamlessly together, rushing the clunky backpackers through the assembly line.
We navigate endless construction zones where men, lethargic with bellies full of pizza, use rusty yellow machines to push muddy dirt and gravel around. From plastic chairs in the mall, or the stiff, brown grass by an intersection, we sit and watch the system hum along, indifferent to its observers. Part of me yearns to join in – to hop in a car speed off to work – to produce something that can help optimize the system.
But for now, we’re going to walk. I need the boredom, the slowness, the nothingness that makes the tiny somethings unique.
After several days, we finally escape the sprawl. We walk along country roads, passing apathetic cows and abandoned farm houses and dead possums on the road, and I am bored again.
Logan Miller grew up in Juneau. In 2015, he and fellow Juneauite Nick Rutecki began walking around America with backpacks and no plans. Read more at www.thewalkingtrip.com.
Logan Miller and Nick Rutecki grew up in Juneau. After graduating college, they decided to start walking around the country, “with backpacks and no plans.” Here, Miller poses next to the very first sign they saw, in the first mile of the trip.
