A restaurant menu at the imaginatively named “Mile 115 rest stop”, an example of a pre-determined place to stop. Distance from a point that is known to all, so obvious to locals that it needn’t be mentioned yet potentially baffling to others (115 miles from where we set out from? From where the road ends?). A physical crossroad is often interpreted as an invitation to pause, reflect upon the journey so far, and enjoy greasy samosas. Entrepreneurs of the variety that open roadside restaurants are merely responding to the human notion to stop at crossroads.
This differs from the other sort of stop: unplanned, out in the middle of nowhere and utterly devoid of any trace of humanity save for the very road one has been rocketing down. Where stepping off of the bus at a given point can be as momentous as stepping on to the moon – perhaps at no other time has a bus ever stopped at this exact point and passengers stumbled off, bleary-eyed, disoriented, shuffling off into bushes seeking relief.
History, written in tire-tracks and footprints.
Square Inch Anthro / 平方英寸人类学 