On a drive to the Iraq-Syria border during her last trip, Rubin found that competing military and militia groups had set up checkpoints everywhere, making travel increasingly difficult. The following is an account of the nine hours it took her and her companions to drive 130 miles through more than 26 checkpoints
How cool. I was about to go off about her complaining that rural Iraq was inconvenient to drive through, then I kept reading and realized that this piece had no agenda but to tell you a lot with very little. Beautiful writing.