Once in a while
I have the luxury of time. I have a job not too far away and I can take sideroads. Drive past the Unique Inn and the Twisty Freeze. Do the speed limit through the small towns along the way and look at the scenery.
Robert Pirzig talks about the heightened awareness you get on a motorcycle- the sense that there is nothing between you and the scenery- but that, to me, is perception. I don’t think about what I’m driving or how. I just see the sights. The town with only apartments or large, stately homes, nothing in between, not even a mobile home park. The junkyard that seems to stretch for miles, filled with nothing but near-worthless late 70’s cars. The bottle blond tat models hauling duffel bags of laundry into the coin-op, trailing rugrats and dogs.
I wish to see this all, every small town in America like this, to wander through and look at it all, before it goes away. So much has gone already. I will probably never have a chance, but I can dream, and when work affords me these little luxuries I take advantage.
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Yes, I like wandering the by ways as well. Never know what one might see. It is true you can see more on a motorcycle, but inattention on one of those is fatal.
I know you don’t like bikes much, but I had the best time riding across Iowa on Ragbrai. You go though the little towns in Iowa at a pace that refreshing.
The small town near my dads deer camp looked like it was frozen in the early 70s for 30 years. When I was there a few months ago, the kids were wearIn wigger pants with their bvds Hanging out and bitch beaters from AF. How I missed the sensible Wranglers and Plaid polyester shirts. Dang I’m old.
Paul: i have zero issue with bikes. What would give you that idea? I have one and ride it when i can. I have issues with morons.
Ah…There are some on bikes. I guess I thought you might have a issue with them when you where pulling Tam’s chain.
Morons seem to inhabit a lot of the meat space anymore.
1. Head north from where ever you are.
2. Get on US Highway 2
3. Head west until you are just outside Seattle, then turn around.
Taking Highway 2 from Seattle to my parents house in Idaho was one of the best journeys of my life.
On one of my trips East within the last couple of years, I got off of 70 at exit 141 in Ohio and took US 40 ease to I-77. While this was due to my lying GPS telling me there were construction delays ahead, it was still enjoyable, even driving through Zanesville…at least until I got to Cambridge, which was a clusterf*ck that lost me all the time I’d allegedly saved from “construction delays” on 70.
Still, it was different.
What you describe is one of my favorite parts of life on the road. I take the boring interstates to get where I need to be on time, but I often take the old US Highways and State Roads on my trips home or when a meeting deadline is not imminent.
I see the slow death of the small town, the century old architecture, stately old houses and think about times that only exist in my imagination. I delight in the fields of beans and corn, the small streams and woodland dotted landscape.
I think I am a lucky man. Then I spend the night in another generic hotel.
Dangit, now I feel trashy for using the coin-op.
No need, Joanna. I still use it myself, sometimes. A lot of decent people there And a bunch of shitheads. You are NOT a shithead.
Aw, thanks.
Usually my fellow laundriers are a mix between a) random harried parents letting their screaming kids run around the building, and b) a little old Chinese lady who wipes everything down with paper towels and doesn’t seem to speak a word of English.