My sister and I were roommates in Chicago back when we were both beginning our professional careers. To travel home to our small town in rural Missouri for a holiday was a seven-hour one-way drive; long, boring and made treacherous by winter weather. We drove Interstate 55 and, not only is this a long stretch, but a flat, wind-blown road with snow fences along the fields to keep the drifting snow off the Interstate. We drove a 12-year-old, hand-me-down Chevy Caprice, nicknamed the Green Beast; it was a boat, so we felt safe amid the trucks and other holiday travelers