Did you know...?
No place like home
Everyone sees things differently, how you navigate a road, what type of conditions you feel safe traveling and how you see landscape. That is the conclusion I came to last week as I looked at the paper map and guided Chip on what highways to take for us to continue to our mini vacation in Missouri.
On Wednesday afternoon when I called ahead for hours at a museum we wanted to see on Thursday morning, I was told the facility would be closed because three inches of snow was in the forecast. I don’t mean to sound harsh and I don’t wish anyone in harms way, but in this area if we shut down for three inches of snow, it would be a worse shut down than COVID.
With the road conditions on Thursday morning as they were, we opted to look at our trusty paper map for alternate routes to stay off the four-lane roads and avoid some of the drivers that seemed to not understand how to drive in weather. The route did take us on different roads than we would have taken to get to our destination. I would even venture to say that Google Maps might not have even found these roads. To top it off, the atlas map we were using is one that Chip and I have been using for trips for the past 40 years! It still got us where we needed to go; it was not outdated!
We traveled on county paved roads that were very narrow at times, with no shoulders, and with more like a two-foot V for a ditch. Needless to say, you watched carefully where you were going. Besides the narrow roads, the sides of the road were tree lined, not giving you much of a sideline view. At times, I missed looking out on pasture ground and crop land as I am used to in Nebraska. After an hour and half on this highway, I called it the ”rollercoaster road.” Never before have I been on a road that had so many bends, turns, ups and downs. What should have taken us five hours was more like eight. We looked at it as an opportunity to keep moving and not be stalled along the side of a four-lane interstate while they cleared away an accident.
Total miles traveled were close to 1,600. I am grateful that Chip likes to drive as I look up routes. As great as it was to get away, besides being ready to be back at my own home for all of its comforts, I was ready to be back in Nebraska for the wideopen sight lines, the straighter roads with good shoulders and the drivers that seem to know how to navigate a few inches of snow.
It is all how you look at your area. Where we visited, to them there is no place on earth like their home. For us here in Custer County, Nebraska, there is no place like home.