In forty years of driving, I've seen a fair piece of road, and in the 4000+ miles I just drove on a trip, the road was my constant companion, more impactful than my passengers. What I learned about her is that she is fickle. Beyond variables like the weather or the driver's abilities, the road meets you or eats you.
I love to see a road cruise through a landscape, finding a path that surprises the driver with a new vista or challenging her with a higher grade or tighter curve radius. Obviously, the workers who built the road decades ago had some influence on its route, but I bet the road fought them when they tried to avoid a certain thrill or challenge she wanted. When driving into the setting sun, the road seems at times to play peek-a-boo, the blinding variety, providing blessed momentary relief in a dip before rising to force you to stare into the fiery orb. Just when you cannot stand the glare any longer, she provides a respite in the shade of a cliff.
There are times when other factors change a driver's experience on a road, and when that happens, the road does not care the cause or cost. While driving through western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle last week, every driver was struggling with the relentless wind blowing across the high plains and highway. I thought my stress levels were high, as I tried to figure out the ballast of my rental SUV in the 60-70mph gusts. Then, I saw a semi on its side, pitifully incapacitated, a long, dark, humiliating skid marking its demise. I could not believe what I was seeing and what it meant for me and other drivers on that stretch of I-40. The road was nonplussed and gobbled up the carcasses of one, two, three more semis in my rear view mirror. To make the scene more dramatic, wildfires erupted on both sides of the highway, licking the road and reducing visibility with a dusky smoke. I raced to outrun that hellscape, but the road was just the stage on which the drama unfolded, a veritable Greek Chorus.
A few days ago, on I-40 once again, eastbound outside of OKC, the road served me a freak encounter. Traffic was dense and demanding a fast clip. I was holding my own in the far right lane, nearing the exit for my hotel that night. I was following a sedan when it swerved into the shoulder. I had enough time to comment, "Gosh, that car just ran off the road," then I saw why. By the time I processed everything, I'd run over a large piece of metal, resulting in a terrible thud-crunch-screech from my car. Just then, the road gracefully offered up a gentle exit, which I took gratefully, lulling myself into the belief that I had gotten quite lucky. I was able to drive to my hotel and park, ascertaining that everyone was uninjured, though shaken. When I stepped out of the vehicle, however, I immediately saw the fluid flowing freely from the engine compartment and, when I tried to open the hood, spotted the crunched fender and grill. The road had chewed me up and just spit me out to deal with the aftermath: towing, insurance claims, a replacement rental, and an altered itinerary due to lost time. Embarrassingly, the road saw everything. She was neither friend nor foe, instigator nor accomplice - simply a witness to my skewering.
For the rest of the trip, I seemed to have heightened awareness about the skid marks one sees along any highway. Some bump against the guard rails, pointing to sharp, startling creases caused by impact. Others veer off into the soft shoulder, then back toward the road, hinting that a sleepy driver might have been startled by the rough and tried to regain the straight and narrow. I found myself wondering about the drivers' stories - what they'd been doing just before the event, what caused the skid, their injuries - physical, emotional, financial. The road knows all the stories, but she's not telling.
No comments:
Post a Comment