In Support of Rest Areas

[talon]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33917782/ns/travel-news/

Having recently taken a round trip through half the country with dogs (one pet, one service animal), let me tell you just how essential the highway rest areas are, how useless many actually were, and how wonderful a few were.

First - why rest areas are needed. I drove along I-40 from Oklahoma to California with 2 small dogs. Many people who advocate closing rest areas claim there are commercial facilities available: restaurants, service stations, and other for-profit businesses.

Sure, there are those facilities - often located miles from the exit with the way back to the highway not plainly marked, causing long delays and frustration in attempting to find a way onto the highway in unfamiliar areas. That's assuming the facilities are even open. I can't tell you how glad I was that many service stations have gone to the pay-at-the-pump service even when they are otherwise closed otherwise I'd have had to wait hours for them to open. This meant that I did have to wait hours to find someplace where I could empty my own bladder - the restrooms in closed service stations were obviously closed! As for finding a safe place for the dogs to pee and poop, read on. Service stations rarely had a safe place to take dogs to relieve themselves - even service dogs. There was rarely shade, even more rarely grass, and parking was exceedingly scarce for those not pumping gas. I did not find one single service station along the I-40 route to be pet-friendly at all. I don't expect service stations at rest stops, but having rest stops makes pausing at service stations easier for those traveling with animals.

Few of the restaurants I was able to find when exiting the highway were drive throughs, which means they are not pet-friendly. When the weather is brutally hot, you can't leave dogs in a parked car even if you could find shade under which to park. Shade was remarkably scarce at every single restaurant I stopped at. The temperatures were in the upper 80's and 90's along all of I-40 even in early October, far too hot to leave dogs of any size in the car. I could take - with argumentation and showing papers - my service dog in, but not the other dog. Even the time it would take to order take-out and wait for it was too long for the poor dogs to be left in a hot car, so it's a good thing I packed plenty of non-perishable food and water for myself as well as the dogs. Even a vending machine would have been nice to buy a sandwich or a piece of fruit to vary the peanut butter and crackers (bread molded too fast for the trip) and dried fruit I had. When you travel with dogs or other animals, those service stations and restaurants found near highways are remarkably un-pet-friendly. Again, I don't expect restaurants - or even vending machines - at rest stops. Just a place to pause.

As for other commercial businesses, I'm sure they meant hotels and shops. Again, few of these are pet-friendly. Shops bar all pets from entrance. Period. Since few shops offered parking with shade - and even parking with shade can still be too hot for unattended pets - shopping was completely off the list. Service animals could go in, but not other animals. Many hotels claimed to be pet friendly but none of them offered a decent pet area for relieving themselves, and most only allowed one pet. What did they expect the traveler to do with their other pets?

The spacing of these commercial businesses was also not conducive to the comfort of the traveler, with or without pets. There were stretches, particularly through the Mojave Desert, where there was nothing for 4 or more hours of steady driving. My bladder could take that and I could drink while I was driving, but the dogs needed me to stop so they could drink every hour - even with air conditioning in the car, the heat of the desert areas was very drying and they got thirsty often. With a dearth of rest areas, I had to pull over on the shoulder and hope no one hit us while we were paused.

Rest areas don't have to offer much. When I needed a rest stop, what I was mostly looking for was a protected place off the road to pull over with trash barrels and night lights (solar-powered where feasible). The pull-outs or scenic overlooks along the road to the Sequoyah National Forest are ideal. They were created as safe places for slow vehicles to pull over so faster ones could pass them, but they also served as good places to walk dogs, pause to stretch and get drinks and re-arrange things and even snack and take pictures. There were no facilities at them other than the occasional trash barrel (or water for those whose cars got over-heated in the steep inclines), yet they were wonderful. I could pull over, admire the view, take pictures, walk the dogs, stretch and get snacks all around, let faster traffic go by, and then move on when I was done. That's all rest stops mostly need to be.

Everything else is optional: shade, vending machines, public restrooms, picnic tables, map walls, statues, ornamental sidewalks, bench bowers, fancy landscaping, fences, and gift shops. Those all cost a lot to create and maintain. I expect to see these at state border crossings. Remote rest areas with no 24-hour pet-friendly facilities at nearby exits could do with vending machines and coin-op toilet stalls, but really, nothing else is needed.

Every time I passed a closed rest area, I felt frustrated. When I passed rest stop after rest stop that was closed, I felt angry and slighted. My tax dollars were being wasted to create fancy and expensive "oases" when all I needed and wanted was a protected respite from the road. There were times when both an exit and a rest stop were too far away and I had to pull over on the shoulder and hope I wouldn't get hit. Half the time I pulled over to the shoulder, I was accosted by various state highway patrol officers wanting to know why I stopped. I carefully explained I was traveling with animals and we couldn't find any pet-friendly places to stop. The road's shoulder is always pet-friendly.

As I detailed above, commercial facilities don't provide what is needed, even for a fee, even if not traveling with animals. For those traveling with animals, pit stops are rare and difficult to find. With more people traveling with animals, and choosing road trips over air travel (whether because of the animals or because air travel has become so unfriendly), decent basic rest stops are even more critical than ever.