Traffic and Detours

Even if you live in the middle of nowhere, we have to deal with both traffic and detours in our lives.

They can just come up on you, no warning, and sometimes no way around them.

Even with the best of GPS apps, you can find yourself suddenly waiting for traffic to clear only to find out at the last minute that it isn’t traffic but instead a road closure, redirecting everyone to exactly the same place.

In the middle of nowhere, you probably have “traffic”, too. I mean sure, you do; just not the way the densely populated cities and suburban areas of the world experience it. Sure, we have hours of delays – sometimes just because someone drove too slowly and caused a phantom traffic jam – no reason other than human nature. We often just have too many people going to the same exact place, at the exact same time, and not paying attention to the cues of the other drivers. Simple things that make a 5 mile stretch take 45 minutes to traverse. Conditions that make you think, I could get out and walk there faster…but, you can’t – maybe a steady cross-country race pace – but not walking.

Now, while we city folk have traffic, the rest of the world really experience detours.  All of the middle-of-nowhere residents – out there in the wide open spaces of nature that must be so very beautiful to enjoy on a daily basis – you have some serious issues to contend with on a regular basis. Detours that can require you to drive hours and miles out of your way, into another state and back again. Detours caused by a flood, snowstorm, tornado, wind storm, hail the size of baseballs, cattle drives, fallen trees in the only place the road runs between the granite wall with a cliff on the other side…natural obstacles to every day life.

I guess, no matter where you live, the only thing that we can do about traffic and detours is to handle them both with patience, grace and dignity…taking them in stride and not letting something out of your control impact you too very much. I mean, if they are part of every day life, don’t let it stress you out. Maybe, just maybe, you will see, find or experience something you never would have come across if you had been able to just get there faster, the same old way you were already going.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl

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