It was quite cold and windy yesterday, so I cut my walk short, but it was sunny, so I wanted to see things. When I shrugged and decided I would just head west for a while to see things i haven't lately, my wife suggested an errand half an hour WSW, and I poked around a bit after that. No new places. There are no roads I have not been on an hour in any direction at this point. I fancied that a superpower I have not much thought about but would be an enjoyable one would be the ability to teleport - with the car - an hour out in any of the eight directions and then start searching for serendipity as I drove around. That's getting into territories where there really are roads I haven't been on, or pullovers I haven't stopped at, or country stores I haven't gone into for coffee. If I'd had that superpower starting with my driver's license I might have eventually exhausted it and grown tired of it, like Gollum under the mountain, but at my age I would have enough to keep me busy until they take my license away.
I enjoy that impulsively deciding I'm going to take one route rather than another, spending a less-efficient fifteen extra minutes on the trip but seeing places I haven't for three years, or five, or ten. I briefly thought how much more fun it would be to have my wife along suggesting the turns and variations that she would like. It immediately occurred to me that she doesn't find this anywhere near as much fun as I do.
Yet I think who is controlling the steering wheel has a lot to do with the enjoyment at such times. I have been a passenger with friends (I am thinking of one in particular) who loves this sort of rambling about, and I soon tire of traveling with him. We grow less curious and weary of a road at different rates, hankering to get back to the main road and knock off some mileage, but not unhappy enough to object to what the driver chooses. We get hungry at different times, we want to see different things. We have friends who have been wealthy since they married fifty years ago who travel often, and seem to be of similar mind in what they will do. My wife and I would look similar in taste and knowledge to outsiders, but it seems less so to us. We don't want to see the same things, even when we want to go to the same places.
And of course, children complaining in the back seat makes that so much better.
It's a very different experience whether you are holding the wheel or sitting in the passenger seat in terms of searching out serendipity. My wife usually drives only if we are exceeding two hours each way, in which case she will start taking 30-60 minute shifts while I nap. But when you start putting in over four hours of driving in a day total, your desire for serendipity diminishes. There are lunches and stretches to arrange, B&B's to check into, and when the daylight wanes, the scenery ain't worth much. When I drove Ben to Houston ago it really drove home the lesson that after dark on the highway, the whole country looks the same. You get some variations in the restaurants noted on the exit signs (we don't have Waffle House up here), and if it's not raining a city skyline can be interesting even quite late, but mostly, Montana looks like Maryland on the interstate. The numbered secondary roads aren't that different either, just irritating because they do not behave as regularly as the freeways. When you can come over a rise and see some landscape in the daylight, or sense whether you are in thick versus light forest those roads are fine. But at 9PM you are stopping at a lot of red lights where you're the only one there, the little shops your wife wants to explore are closed, and the non-chain restaurants take on a seedy, even menacing air. Not the serendipity you were hoping for. You need daylight for that when driving. Nighttime serendipity requires town centers.
We think we'll head for Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard this spring when there aren't any crowds. A good drive with some new territory and ferries are always fun. Unless you miss them.
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