Have you ever seen the movie Joy Ride?
If not, it’s a pretty creepy movie about two brothers on a cross-country road trip who manage to make a truck driver really mad…and the guy wants to kill them on the highway.
Why do I bring this up? Because we’re about to read a bunch of stories from people about the weird and creepy things they’ve seen at highway rest areas…which is kind of terrifying places, if we’re being honest.
Here’s what folks said on AskReddit.
1. Like a horror movie.
While I was in the process of sh*tting, I caught a midget janitor watching me through the crack in the door.
I was like 8 years old.”
2. Creeper.
“While driving cross country to college a number of years ago, I decided to try to do as much of the 23-hour trip in one stretch as possible.
Drove until 430 am when I decided to just catch a two hour nap in the driver seat at a rest stop. About 30 minutes after I pull in when I’m pretty sound asleep and all of a sudden I wake up to see a guy looking at me over the hood of my truck. The smell of weed coming from him is overwhelming (windows were cracked because it was nice out and didn’t want to sleep with engine and a/c on).
The pothead does a slow, purposeful loop around my pickup, and when he gets back to my passenger side, I cranked the ignition and tore out of there like a bat out of hell. I’m not sure if he was just curious, or if he was planning to jump me, but I drove another hour before parking in a much busier, much better lit parking lot for an hour.
Ended up getting to my destination around noon and passing out for about 10 hours. Great trip.”
3. Missouri.
“We were heading back home from a road trip to visit friends near Branson, MO, when we needed to make a pit stop.
I finished up at my urinal and went to wash up, while my buddy was still using his. Just then a trucker walked in and started taking a piss at the urinal directly next to my buddy’s, despite several others being available. I looked over after washing up and the guy was taking a piss, but staring directly at my buddy.
Not just creeping out the corner of his eye, but full-on, head-turned 90 degrees staring, looking him up and down. Literally less than a foot and a half away. Obviously, I was laughing my *ss off, but my buddy was rightfully creeped out.
Of course I stayed until he finished to make sure he didn’t get truck stop r*ped, cause that’s what bros do, but I still give him sh*t for it from time to time.
The Midwest can get pretty weird sometimes, especially the further into Missouri you get.”
4. Run for it!
“I was chased through the Denver pilot by a one legged crazy lady when I told her I didn’t have any cash.
She brought that crutch up and tried to whoop my *ss.”
5. Tricks of the trade.
“I saw a male lot lizard that was completely dressed in drag.
Like I mean there was no way telling it was a dude till you saw his face. he wore a tight girl hoodie with a long black summer dress and a pair of Uggs.
The Highway Patrol picked him up and dropped him off a few exits up to keep him from bothering the truckers. Well he hitch hikes back to the truck stop, but wearing normal guy clothes except for the Uggs which he still had on.”
6. What’s that noise?
“One of my trucker friends has a story about spending the night alone in a rural stop in the middle of a Maine winter. She had a bit of an uneasy feeling about the place but couldn’t put her finger on anything and needed badly to rest, so she stayed. Perfect Stephen King setup, right?
She’s usually a very solid sleeper, but wakes up around 3 am that night. She’s not quite sure what woke her up, until she notices that the cab is very slowly and gently rocking side-to-side.
She can also hear an intermittent, soft sort of rubbing sound that corresponds with the rocking. She was a seasoned trucker already at this point, but really wasn’t sure what this was, and all the ideas that came to mind ranged from the mundane but alarmingly unsavory to the outright paranormal. Terrified, she creeps up to look in the side view mirror to see what’s out there.
Turns out some moose like to lick the road salt off of semi-trucks.”
7. Spooky.
“Had my first scary rest stop adventure 2 weeks ago.
Girlfriend and I are driving back to Los Angeles from AZ, and stop at one on the 10E just after Coachella Valley.
It’s about 2am but I really have to pee, and she does too. As we pull in there’s a good amount of trucks on their side, and cars on our side; but I don’t see any people.
It’s got a real creepy vibe and my girlfriend decides she can wait to pee; so I head to the bathroom while she stays in the car with the doors locked.
In the bathroom is a barefoot, very dirty man sitting on the floor under the sinks watching videos on his phone. Ok weird, but I live in Hollywood, so I just avoid eye contact, do my business, and leave.
Gf decides she does need to go, so I walk her to the bathroom and wait outside. Still no human activity in the rest stop.
We get back to my little Subaru and grab some snacks from the trunk and get in the car; the doors are locked and the engine is on, but we are sitting there for a minute or two preparing to go when I catch a glimpse of headlights in my mirror.
An old 70s massive sedan is slowly passing behind us and I can see it’s filled with 4-5 men; their windows are down, and they pull into the spot immediately next to us. Mind you, I parked nowhere near any other cars, but they pulled up right besides us.
Before they came to a stop, my spidey senses tingled and I jammed my car into reverse and flew backwards as I heard their driving yelling “Hey! hey! hey!” To get our attention. And then they put their car into reverse to back up in front of me and block me from leaving.
But thankfully I’m driving a new Subaru vs their old clunky sedan from the 70s and without taking an extra beat I floor it and swerve to avoid them while they back up.
We booked it out of the stop and I did a good 90 on the 10 for a few miles.
I can’t say for sure what would’ve happened if we stayed; but I don’t think they were asking for directions.”
8. Lot lizard.
“This is from my father who is a truck driver:
Stopped for the night at Husky Truckstop in Regina Saskatchewan Canada. At 03:30 the next morning , I received a knock on my door and it was a very young prostitute. She offered services and I declined. I proceeded to close my eyes and by then it was to late. I laid in bed until 05:00.
Got up and got myself dressed. My wife called me , as routine every morning before she left for work at 06:00. While on the phone with her, the same prostitute knocked on my door. She said, ” are you sure you don’t want services ?” I said , ” no thank you , and besides , I’m on the phone with my wife”. She replied with ” that’s ok, I’m sure she won’t mind ”
My wife and I were dumbfounded. After the conversation , I suggested a job posting down the road at Tim Hortons.”
9. Nothing to see here.
“Walked in on a white guy bl*wing a black dude in a truck stop bathroom in Georgia.
Walked around them, pissed and left.”
10. Wanna buy a car?
“One summer during college I worked at a farmer’s market next to a truck stop (gotta love the Midwest).
One day, three guys who were driving cross country tried to sell us their car so they could buy some train tickets to get back home after running out of money. It was a beat up Caddy from the 90s and they wanted two grand for it but were willing to negotiate.
I knew a guy who needed a car so I called him up and told him there were these guys looking to sell their car. He showed up shortly after and we started looking at the car. It was in decent shape, but had something like 200k miles on it.
We looked up the Carfax on it and it was in fact a clean car registered in their name. The guy even showed him recent receipts from maintenance appointments and estimated that it had about 50k miles left in it.
My buddy was close to pulling the trigger after negotiating the price down a few hundred dollars. There was just one thing left to check: the trunk. He popped the trunk and as soon as it popped up, I smelled the most disgusting smell I’ve ever smelled in my life.
The trunk was full of dirty adult diapers. These dudes had been soiling themselves all the way from California to Council Bluffs and transferring their sh*t and piss from the backseat to the trunk through a small door in the backseat. There were probably at least a dozen sh*t-filled diapers in there.
The guys immediately offered to “warsh ‘er out for ‘eem” and knock a few more hundred dollars off the price.
Needless to say, he didn’t end up buying the car.”
11. You got the wrong people.
“My best friend Allie and I took a road trip the summer after we graduated college, drove from the top of Wisconsin to Texas. Her mother is a truck driver, so Allie felt comfortable with us sleeping in truck stops (we were hauling a camper, and we both sucked at trying to park it.
We parked late one night and were walking back from eating when a few different trucks started to flash their lights at us. Freaked me out, and Allie laughed, “don’t worry, they just think we’re lot lizards” and she explained what that was. Ew, but okay, and I shrugged it off.
A few hours later I got out of the car to smoke and not wake her up, lights flashed again from like 50 yards away. I just moved to the other side of the car and leaned facing away from the lights. Two minutes later I hear gravel crunching behind me, and my blood turned to ice.
I turned around, and some very plain, nondescript little white man was walking towards me, but stopped when I looked around.
“Hi there! I’m not trying to scare you… but do you and your friend need any help?”
“No, thank you though.” (I’m feeling like a paranoid dummy and kind of ashamed.) “I just wanted to smoke and didn’t want to wake her up. We’ve been driving a while.”
“Oh okay! Do you work together as a team?”
“What?”
“Would you both work as a team? on someone?”
“No…? OH. NO. We’re not hookers.” (Paranoia was not unfounded. But the conversation remained pleasant)
“Just checkin, thought it was my lucky day! Haha goodnight!” -walks away
I sympathize, the feeling of gross is overwhelming.”
12. Well, that’s nice.
“When I was really young, like elementary/primary school, and my family was moving into another state due to military stuff, and we had everything in two moving trucks, including our pets.
We pulled into a truck stop for the night, my bother opened his door and our cat ran off under the big rigs. There was like 40 big trucks there. One of the truckers saw, apparently truckers are all best friends or something but most of the truckers got out and helped look for the cat.
That was pretty crazy, a couple kids, their mom and dad, and 40 truckers with flashlights looking for a cat.”
How about you?
What’s the scariest or weirdest thing that you’ve seen out on the road?
Talk to us in the comments!
