You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
A 17 mile stretch of Highway that is invisible on the map.
4 lanes of concrete and guard rails and highway patrolmen, simply missing.
I’m talking about I-840 in Tennessee.
The highway is there. It just doesn’t show up on any maps.
I’m at the only visual point of civilization. I’m 200 yards from the highway. I can see it in the background. I can hear big trucks roll by.
Trust me; 840 exists.
But like they say, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it really fall.
I see cars filling up at the gas station which is one part log cabin and one part country store.
There is a sign on the door that reminds anyone with a bladder that this building was built 101 years ago and there is no public restroom. In fact, it says the building has never had a bathroom.
Now there’s a sales tool you don’t see every day!
“What do you do when you have to pee?” I ask the man behind the counter.
“I lock the door and go to my father’s house next door.”
Nothing says sales push like lock the doors and take a poop!
Efficient huh?
So I’m outside this country bumpkin Twilight zone talking to Bubba. He is at his pick up truck pumping gas. He is in a bright work shirt that is splattered with road grime
I ask him about the invisible highway that appears as a grassy knoll of limbo on iphones.
“Yup. 840 don’t show on no cell phones or GPS,” he says with a smile so big I want to carve his head.
He tells me his name is David. But for some reason I write Bubba in my reporter note-book.
I look around at the gas pumps, each one occupied by a denizen of this tiny county dot on the invisible map.
“So you happy you are finally on the map?” I laughingly ask.
“Yeah,” he says using 3 syllables.
Everyone at this Bumpkinville service station might as well be named Bubba. The man at pump 11 eating a Slim Jim. Uncle Bubba. The woman at pump 8 Lady Bubba. I watch a child, perhaps 5 years old pumping gas into his father’s truck. He is pumping gas. I bet he can’t tie his shoes without velcro, but little Bubba can straight up pump high test! I silently dub him Bubba Jr. and his little sister warming her hands under the exhaust manifold on the four wheeler, I call her Bubba-sue.
“Yup. 840 don’t show up on my iphone or my gps,” he says again reiterating his point.
I laugh. I didn’t ask him a question. I guess my first question was still echoing around in his head.
840 don’t show up on iphones or GPS!
Though simple as sliced salami, that is my story in a nutshell.
This major highway connecting 2 major interstates only last week appeared on iphone maps.
Just last week! What was going on for the last year and a half.
It cost 100 million dollars. They cut the ribbon 18 months ago. It was designed to circumnavigate traffic around Nashville to ease congestion.
the day it opened; Google maps said Hello 840! Nice to see ya.
On Apple maps? Hello green spinning hour glass of mystery.
18 months? WTF?
The TDOT lady tells me they offer a downloadable app to citizens. It never worked. Why? It was tied to Apple’s iphones. Why doesn’t Apple iphone show a 17 mile stretch of highway?
I don’t have this answer for you.
Bubba doesn’t either.
Bubba tells me that this gas station is usually where motorists stop and ask for help.
“We’re lost they say. So I would either point them the right direction or drive them to their exit. They are mostly from Memphis. They get out on 840 and they don’t see it on their maps and they get scared.”
He is the quintessential Southern Bumpkin, with poor grammar and a sweet heart.
Why is a 100 million dollar 4 lane highway invisible to iphone mapping technology?
Good question. Because Apple is its own country. Apple is a dictatorship of technology and it answers to no one.
“Google had it up two minutes after we opened the highway,” the Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman says. “Apple? It took 18 months.”
She tells me she tried to call Apple and let them know it was a problem.
“What did the insouciant Apple people say?
“That’s interesting,” she says with a sound bite full of smile.
She tells me that mapping GPS issues like this are not only problems across Tennessee, she says it happens all over the state.
The spokeswoman says the highway is not doing what it is designed to do in large part because iphone maps didn’t show the 17 mile connector.
“Why would you get off on a road that you are not sure goes anywhere?” she says.
And there in lies the enigmatic question?
Why would you?
My cameraman comments to me how calm and quiet and almost peaceful it is.
He says this to me while we are standing on the side of highway 840!
Have you ever stood on the side of an interstate? I have. Many interstates. They are rolling dynamite explosions of sound and chaos. You have to shout just to communicate between passing 18 wheelers.
But out here, on the invisible highway, I feel calm. I wish I had brought an iced tea and a deck chair and some suntan lotion.
That’s how intermittent the traffic flow is.
Maybe 840 will get busier now that it mysteriously shows up on apple maps.
Till then the Bubba gas station will serve as a meeting point for lost travelers who can’t use a 100 year old bathroom that never existed.
Life’s Crazy™