Police cite impatience in I-65 37-mile detour deaths, wrecks

"Gas and bathrooms," said Laurie Lowry, a convenience store clerk who has had a window to the intersection of U.S. 231 and Indiana 28 since the Indiana Department of Transportation closed the northbound I-65 bridge over the Wildcat Creek for a second time on Aug. 7.

These days at Friendly Market, a Marathon gas station and convenience store next to the Pit Stop diner, you have to take what you can get.

The sign on the front door says: "Sorry — Restroom is out of order!!"

And if you missed that one, the door on the bathroom says pretty much the same, seeing as how so many desperate drivers along the detour have stopped to use the toilets that the building's septic field can't handle any more.

"Some guy came in the other day all mad," said Dawn Webb, a cashier at Friendly Market. "He said, 'We're from Indianapolis, and we've heard about you guys in Romney. It's the place without bathrooms.' We always knew this place would make it on the map someday, but I didn't think it would be for for that."