Roadside Journal

Why do I
love this road?

By Chuck Woodbury

Why is it, I wonder, that I love this road so? In my travels, I have seen a hundred such roads. I cannot be sure where I took this photo, but it doesn’t matter; I love this road no matter where it is.

When I am at home and stare at this photo, I want to be traveling. I want to explore. A feeling comes over me that maybe you have felt -- the urge to be somewhere else -- to be away from things familiar. Do you know that feeling?

If I were driving this road now, I would be trying to guess the distance to the mountains. Five miles? Ten miles? I would check my odometer, then check it again at the foot of the mountain. It is a game that I once used to pass time but that I now play just for fun.

This road would have bored me as a child. There is nothing much to see -- just a long ribbon of asphalt that seems to extend forever into the desert. In my high school mechanical drawing class, I drew such roads at my drafting table. Maybe that is when my love affair with these roads began.

I have never understood this love. My guess is these roads are so different from city roads that they somehow refresh me. A busy city clogs my mind, and much of the reason is the stress of driving there -- traffic lights, frequent stop lights and rude drivers. Driving a lonely road like this one cleanses my clogged mind. I feel refreshed, invigorated and ready for anything.

Many times the traffic is so light you can stop in your lane for a ten-minute stretch without the approach of another car. Cows will stare at you, and you can stare back at them, and it will be just you and the cows and that’s all.

At night, you may only see a distant light or two -- a ranch or another vehicle. And above -- a vast universe awaits your gaze. This is a road to drive on a warm summer night in a convertible.

Sadly, this road is a dinosaur. A multi-lane Interstate is much preferred by a society preoccupied with speed.

But I don’t care, for I love this road anyway.

Why? I just do. That’s reason enough.

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