Under Illusion: Day 3

Word Count: 18,064

Summary of Events:

Trace was forced to slow up, as a large amount of smoke was billowing ahead, which he suspected belonged to a large-scale out-of-control fire, around which he and the rest of the traffic were going to be rerouted. As he edged his way toward the exit onto the detour, Trace contemplated whether he should consult his maps to see how short he could make his detour so that he wouldn't get lost, as he didn't like to get lost, and he also had a reputation for not doing so…

Excerpt of the Day:

With the advent, and even increasing prevalence, of digital maps over his lifetime, Trace also had the ability to pick out landmarks along the route, so that his friends were often convinced there was no place he hadn’t been before, as he would find his way along from landmarks more than street signs — although he did double-check his landmarks with the street signs — which gave the appearance of his having an intimate familiarity with his area of travel when he, in fact, had never seen the place before.

Since Trace didn’t have an unlimited data plan on his cellphone — although he did have a decent roaming plan — however, he’d been consulting paper maps for his route, and occasionally seeing if there was any sort of ‘advanced intel’ he could get from digital maps and their satellite imagery on his cellphone when he was at a place with free wifi.

Considering he was, for the most part, driving the Interstate system — or other highways — and avoiding city centres, though, Trace didn’t really need to seek out landmarks all that much, but instead was able to find his way almost exclusively with paper maps, which didn’t even often have details telling him when he was driving past trees versus open grass, if they even noted elevation changes by more than just little dots or triangles with numbers by them indicating the elevation of mountain peaks.

Trace eventually decided to put his truck in park and dart over to grab his map that covered Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas before shifting back into drive and rolling forward.

When he was next stopped, he surveyed his map. He’d plotted on it with light pencil markings — so that he could erase them and replace them in the future, preventing him from getting confused — a route from Billings to Kimball, South Dakota, which he’d confirmed on his cellphone was the farthest he would get in eight hours.

Since Kimball had no truck stop, though, Trace wasn’t sure if he’d be allowed to stop for the night there, or if he’d have to stop sooner, such as at Chamberlain, a slightly larger centre located on the banks of the Missouri River, which was ten to fifteen minutes shy of the full eight hours driving time which was expected of him by his employers — with an hour allowed for lunch.

Finding where he was on the map took a few moments, but was aided by a sign in the ditch beside the highway telling him what exit he was approaching, as he knew what road he was on.

From that information, Trace quickly deduced an easy and rather short detour that would get him back onto his route in what he hoped would be less than an hour, otherwise he might have to start looking for a stop before he reached the Missouri.

With an alternate route quickly plotted, Trace repeated the important details to himself before folding up the map and tossing it onto his empty passenger seat, focusing his attention on getting to the ever-nearing exit, whereafter he ought to be able to get up to highway speed and soon be back on his way, especially considering he’d be able to slip through the exit first, seeing as he was in the lane for it.