Using Your Brakes I-90 Rest Stops Are Great Places To Take A Moment To Change Traveling Gears

They can be the four sweetest words in the English language.

Rest Area Next Right.

Oh, yes. Say hallelujah.

But these roadside way stations are more than just places where Americans pause and refresh. They are, in fact, unique windows on our culture. Especially in summer.

If you doubt that, it’s probably because you’ve never hung out at a rest stop for hours and taken notes.

So, without further ado, let’s pull over and … Welcome to the Sprague Lake rest area, 40 miles southwest of Spokane on the eastbound side of Interstate 90.

If roadside restrooms had mottoes, this one’s might be “Couldn’t Wait Till We Got to the Lilac City.”

The soundtrack includes throbbing truck engines, the hum of I-90 traffic and, depending on where you stood, the depth-charge whoosh of flushing.

That and people opening car doors and leaking out the tail-ends of conversations started miles ago. “No David, we’re not even going near Oregon.”

But it’s an OK place to stop, if you’re willing to overlook the hot-air handdryers.

The grounds are landscaped. There are walking paths and semiscenic vistas. And some of the people who come to, um, rest actually obey the signs about keeping pets on leashes and not feeding the shrieking seagulls.

The parking lot is segregated. Trucks and campers line up away from the action while cars get to pull right up to where the civic club ladies pour coffee and sell cookies.

The people-watching, however, is free.

“What’s the matter?” a man asked as a little girl emerged crying from the women’s room.

“She didn’t even go,” reported a woman with the child.

The kid probably wanted paper towels.

If you stood by the big road-map display, it was only a matter of time before someone asked, “You know where we are on here?”

And you could cheerfully point to the southeast corner of Lincoln County. “Right there.”

Others gently ran fingers over the plastic-covered map as if trying to find their way by some summervacation brand of Braille. And a few genius navigators from the Seattle area confidently jabbed at a spot somewhere between Moses Lake and Grand Coulee Dam, announcing, “Here.”

“Well, there’s Idaho,” said one woman. “We’re not going there.”

Most of the licenses were homegrown. But it didn’t take long to compile a decent list of out-of-state plates. Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, California, North Dakota and, well, you get the picture.

A few people used the pay phones, almost invariably glancing at their watches and surveying the hardscrabble countryside as if telling the person on the other end, “Houston, the landing module functioned perfectly, but I have no idea where we are.”

Most headed right for the restrooms, the star attraction of any rest area. Styles en route varied widely, however.

Some families bolted out of their cars as if they were re-enacting the D-Day landing on Omaha Beach. Others parked and, after one person thrust a sneaker-wearing foot out and onto the pavement, proceeded to fuss with maps, coolers and baby supplies for interminable periods.

One woman forgot to undo her seatbelt. She looked like a roped rodeo calf when she tried to step out.

More than one car spilled litter the instant the doors swung open, suggesting that cans, crusty old towelettes and other debris had reached the point of being pressurepacked.

A few cars were filled with laughter upon arrival. Some pulled up after what might have been miles and miles of sullen silence.

But most families looked like T-shirt wearing World War II bomber crews returning from a mission. They were happy to have made it, but not overly excited. They knew that, after a brief break, they would have to climb back in the minivan and do it again.

Surprising Rest Area Fact: You seldom see grimaces or that get-outof-my-way expression on the faces of people headed to the restrooms. The deal must be that, once you’ve made it that far, the pressure is off, so to speak.

The people who seemed closest to panic were the smokers emerging from non-smoking cars. They whipped out cigarettes with wrist action faster than any Wild West gunfighter’s. In second place might have been the fussy toddlers yearning to run free.

Some people, guys mostly, circled their cars like they thought somebody might have planted a bomb since Ellensburg. Others never gave the family wheels a glance.

A few motorists seemed to obsess about car-key management. “I’ve got it,” announced one woman getting out of a car with Colorado plates. “It’s in my hand.”

The social contract at rest areas is simple: Don’t do anything weird. Let’s all just get where we’re going.

So there isn’t a lot of mingling. Those people are, after all, “the others.”

One guy talked about how the sign “Pet area” really means “Watch your step.” And two West Side families had an unexpected small-world encounter near the women’s room. “Is Mark on Orcas Island?”

But mostly people minded their own business. (Though the urge to stop the various teenage girls going into the slippery-floored public restroom in bare feet and ask “What are you thinking?” was powerful.)

An information sign trumpeting Eastern Washington attractions listed the “Cathedral of St. John the Evengelist” - no, that’s not how you spell evangelist - and that famous crowd-pleaser “Walk in the Zoo.”

Also touted was Riverfront Park, where you can, as the sign put it, “Brave the roller-coasters and highaltitude rides.”

A couple of families spread out big lunches on the rest area’s picnic tables. One chef used a portable camping cook-stove.

Some passers-by nodded and elbowed one another as if to say, “Can you imagine eating HERE?”

A black and white cat emerged from an RV but only got about two steps before being scooped up by a woman wearing a Seattle Mariners T-shirt.

Of course, most travelers don’t stay at a rest area for long, at least not during the middle of the day. But over the course of several hours, you see some people who remind you of your own family, some who don’t and some who, in a way, remind you of all of us.

An extra-long late model pickup with Montana plates stopped, and a sixtysomething man got out. He released a beautiful, shiny border collie from a travel cage in the back.

A sixtysomething woman got out of the passenger’s side and tried to attach a leash to the dog, calling “Zoey … Zoey.”

“Well, hook her up,” the man snapped.

“I CAN’T CATCH HER,” the woman hissed.

Not far away, a guy looking at the display map asked the time-honored question, “Where the hell’s Spokane?”

Bad vibes were taking over the Sprague Lake rest area.

Now fast forward about 10 minutes.

The guy at the map had hit the men’s room, figured out that Spokane wasn’t far away and helped his young son with his laces. He was smiling.

And Zoey’s people had made similar pit stops before walking off in different directions. But now the woman and the dog were heading back to the truck. Zoey seemed happy. The woman’s face was harder to read.

But the sixtysomething man was waiting for them. He was holding an open box of doughnuts. A peace offering. His expression said “Sorry.”

The woman reached into the box and took a doughnut.

Sometimes all you need is a little rest.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Color Photos