Rest Stops on Interstate Highways

I do more highway driving these days.  I’ve learned to appreciate rest stops.  I stop just to use the bathroom and to wake the hell up.  You know that falling asleep feeling you get when driving.  That’s a scary feeling.  It’s like somebody is hypnotizing you and you can’t come out of the trance. That’s when I find a rest area fast. I did not know the history of rest areas.  But knowing this country black people were likely not welcome at most early rest areas.  They probably had unofficial rest areas where black people could stop.  No restroom, no water. No food.  Just a piece of cement in the ground big enough for 1 or 2 cars.   But, I did some research.  Rest areas started in the 1950s.  Some states built them, they claim, to emphasize that state’s culture.  I saw a photo where the state of Texas built rest areas in the shape of Teepees.  Now how insulting was that to Native Americans?  This country takes the land from Native Americans, then mocks them by putting up rest stops with a teepee design.  Who thought of that?  It’s like rubbing it it.  Whomever it was their entire family should be interviewed on TV then lined up to be slapped by the last 15 Native Americans living in this country. Thankfully most of the rest stops I visited looked okay.  But, I always worry about serial killers being inside the bathrooms waiting for me.  So, when I go into a rest room I go in fully loaded.  I’m packing like SWAT on a mission.  I’m talking full body armor, knives, backup guns, stun grenades.  So when I use the bathroom I have one hand on my stuff and the other hand on a weapon. I’m looking around and peeking  at whomever comes in. The food in those rest stop vending machines is sad.  They have sodas and snacks from 20 years ago.  You eat that stuff you’ll have to go big time at the next rest stop. But truckers really need rest stops.  Otherwise truckers would fall asleep and kill all of us.  Now some states are closing rest stops because you’ve got these all purpose gas stations being built with showers, restaurants, stores, video games.   They’re like little cities. I have an idea on how to keep the rest areas open.  Create rest and brothel stops.  That way it becomes a multi service facility.