I have spent hundreds of hours of my life on I-94. A 70-mile stretch of two-lane interstate between the two largest cities in Wisconsin, two dots in the web of the Midwest megalopolis. It’s a road I’ve been on my entire life; when my family moved to Madison from Milwaukee in 2006, an hour and a half away from two sets of grandparents, my future with I-94 was etched into the pavement.
My early memories aren’t much to go by: blurred landscapes that all looked the same, time stretching out alongside the road or abruptly jumping as I slowly peeled my head off the carseat, disoriented post-nap. I remember insisting that I needed some $2 piece of plastic at the Pine Cone gas station and, as I learned to read, staring at the names of the streets on the exit signs leading into Milwaukee, completely oblivious to the places they corresponded to. Back then, getting on the highway always meant that I’d be seeing family: either the maximalism of my dad’s parents’ house on Summit or the stark white carpets and couches of my other grandparents - a terrible house to be in as a clumsy kid. I didn’t ever think about I-94; I doubt I knew what it was called. All it meant was sitting in the back seat for an hour and a half, making myself carsick reading The Ranger’s Apprentice or thinking about how unfair it was that I didn’t have a Gameboy for situations like this when my friend Drew did and would always talk about how fun it was. Every now and then, I’d be dropped off to a set of grandparents in Johnson Creek during a weekend where my parents had other obligations, and all of the sudden there was a point C along the way, something in between home and sort-of-home.
Not much changed in the way I thought about I-94 for a while after that; even when I learned to drive, it was just another road, and not one I took often. When my family moved from Madison back to the Milwaukee area in 2020, I suddenly found myself face-to-face with I-94. Often. No longer was I a passive observer, but I was rocketing a tiny Prius through two lanes, dead set on either 1) seeing my folks or 2) getting back to my 2020 summer sublet filled with 24 year olds who scared the shit out of me. Only then could I start to appreciate I-94 for what it is; something so Wisconsin and yet so anti-Wisconsin and so American and so grotesque that it is almost impossible to comprehend it existing alongside the tranquil farmlands and forests that line its flanks. I-94 is a stage for the worst the people of the state have to offer: idiots who cruise at 72 in the left lane and can’t figure out why they keep getting passed on the right, luxury SUVs burning a gallon of gas per mile, minivans chock-full of families whose drivers feel fine brake-checking their peers in front of their children, and a horde of 18-wheelers, a machine so monstrous that only the twisted minds of the United States could have conceived it. And when you finally get to Milwaukee, you’re confronted with a monument to the power of the automotive industry: dozens of interchanges criss-crossing one another in every possible configuration, a testament to the ability of Wisconsin’s civil engineers and a glaring reminder of how that talent is put to use. God may live in the clouds above I-94, but even He turns a blind eye to what it becomes as Lake Michigan nears.
For all the horrors the freeway has to offer - the wrecks, the carcasses, the billboards - there are hints of something greater, something closer to Earth, where the pavement has yet to trample the soil. Squeezed between ads for motels and lawyers and restaurants are signs pointing to state parks, historical monuments, and natural landmarks. Beyond the reaches of the SUV and the semi are pockets of calm. When you’re pushing 90, it can be hard to remember that your in between is someone else’s here. Thinking about I-94 as a tool of connection, a thread that runs through (or perhaps more aptly near) thousands of Wisconsinites, tames the terror a bit. And driving on it isn’t all bad, really.
Except for that stupid fucking asshole from earlier today who put blue decals on his white Dodge Charger but wasn’t a cop. Scared me for no reason. Dickhead.