Looking Around
Yesterday I was driving 70 down a road north of Fredericksburg, and I wondered why I was driving 70 down a road north of Fredericksburg. It’s a road with pretty scenery, courtesy of the Llano uplift, and trying to see it while driving 70, even if it is the posted speed limit, is a great way to get yourself killed. I don’t know about other people, but I tend to drift when I start looking at things along the road. So, I slowed down.
Now, slowing down in Texas on any road is no way to make friends. So, whenever I felt like traffic was backing up, I turned into drives and mailbox turnouts to let folks by. I felt much more at ease, driving slow and looking around, and I wondered if that wasn’t a good metaphor for modern life. We spend a lot of time going places as fast as we can in our cars. And think how much we miss, how much we just pass by. Seems a little sad.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I got older, when I wanted all the time in the world, that I realized slowing down was a way to get some of it. So, I could have had more when I was younger, and maybe that would have made life sweeter. Although, I think I did a fair job of driving the slow backroads, despite wanting to be a fast driver. For instance, I know that on highway 90 in Florida where the road crosses the Suwanee River, there’s a sign with lyrics to Stephen Foster’s song about the same river, and just south over the hill, where Interstate 10 goes by, no one knows.