Gateway to the West

So I guess I am wondering if it is really a gateway to the west if you just stop in St. Louis. Don't you have to continue on to at least Kansas City for it to be considered the gateway to the west? Maybe I am just overthinking it. Anywho, I find myself at the USDLA awards in St. Louis and even though the weather is terrible and overcast, the view from the ceremony is just outstanding (However this view would make it a gateway to the east).

Regardless, I ended up having to drive here due to the time constraints of my schedule and the lateness of the ceremony, which actually led to a nice Griswold-esque trek that included a soundtrack that I loaded up for the trip, complete with Holiday Road from the movie. After listening to that song five times I realized that without the movie or someone there with you to enjoy it, the song actually sucks. Oh well, another moment that just did not deliver compared to how I had built it up in my mind.

So after that little segue, I should probably get to the point of this entry. I encountered many parts of the interstate on my westward journey that only had two lanes in the westbound direction. This is infuriating to anyone that is traveling more than an hour in any one sitting. I am not sure what it is but whenever I need to travel anywhere, all the looky-loos come out of the woodwork and decide they need to be in the left-hand lane. Then throw in a nice thunderstorm and some heavy downpours and you end up with "Freeze-Dried Idiots"... just add water. I just don't get it... I don't have a problem if you do not like to drive in the rain, or if your vision does not accommodate the driving required to maneuver while you are driving in the rain, but please do not make everyone else that IS still comfortable driving in the weather pay for your uneasiness by staying in the left lane. MOVE OVER. I wish that all phones came equipped with a built-in emergency phone that had the phone number of your license plate so that you could prank call those morons while you are driving behind them.

I have talked to many people that say they prefer to drive in the left lane because they do not like to get stuck behind people, but while in the left lane they go below the speed limit. What I do not get is why police officers do not give those people more tickets. Those people are causing bigger hazards on the road than people speeding. Disrupting the flow of traffic due to slow driving is ridiculous. On that note, I also think that it should be illegal for semi-trucks to drive in the left lane when there are only two lanes of traffic.

I guess the real solution would be to make sure that every interstate has at least three lanes of same-direction traffic on each side of the median. One can dream.