RUSH HOUR

"Estimated driving time:  56 minutes under current conditions."

That sentence at the top of my MapQuest driving directions totally cracked me up.The only town we would be driving through on this particular trip deeper into the boonies was Kenton. Kenton is sort of like my hometown of Troy - a one-horse town with one blinking red light and more grain bins than places to shop.

As I turned off Polk Station Road onto Highway 45 - you know, down there in the river bottoms, half way between nowhere and nowhere else - I wondered aloud how variable the driving conditions in the tiny town of Kenton, TN, could possibly be. "Think we might get caught in rush-hour traffic?" I laughed to my passengers.

This lonely ribbon of Highway 45 is a notorious speed trap. No wonder - it's just miles and miles of cotton fields and bean fields and river bottoms and more cotton fields, as far as the eye can see, with just about zero traffic. I think we passed two vehicles headed north before we reached Kenton.

This particular evening, I kept my eye on the speedometer as I drove south, joking that I sure hoped we wouldn't get caught in any traffic back-ups.

Then we reached the Kenton city limits.

Right behind two monster combines.

And a long snake of cars and trucks toodling along at an exhilarating 12 miles per hour.

There wasn't going to be any passing on that stretch of asphalt. The enormous heads of the combines reached from the white line on the right side of the road all the way over to the white line on the left.

Beats me how on-coming vehicles dealt with the traffic situation. All I know is: I was caught in rush-hour traffic in Kenton.

Looked like it was going to be a long commute!