It’s strange how unpurposefully you end up at the same rest stops over and over again, stopping for gas at the same places. I guess if you’re travelling the same routes and you prefer Wendy’s over McDonalds, that’s just going to fall into place that way, but it was funny pulling off at a pretty unfamiliar exit and realizing we’d been there before.
I think I’m a little annoyed at myself for allowing such repitition. We’re always in such a rush to get places, though, it doesn’t allow for as much exploration as I’d like. It’s one of the main reasons I had really tried to keep our drives to 4 hour sprints. On days like today, the 6 and a half hours between Hyattsville, MD and Charlotte, NC is eaten up quickly with a visit to a rest stop and pause for gas. Lunch elongates our downtime further and we have no time to explore the tantalizing signs that we didn’t have time to explore last time through and which I vow to explore next time, but fear that I probably won’t.
We always seem to have worthwhile excuses to leave just a little bit later. It’s not that I mean taking the same paths over and over, but there’s an awful lot of minutiae to discover between the places on our circuit. We should take the opportunity to explore them now, while we’re anonymous. Once we’re huge-ass rockstars, you know, we won’t be able to stop anywhere without bodyguards and our entourage and the screaming teenagers ALWAYS get on the nerves of the guys running the “traditional Irish farm” and freak out all the creatures at the petting zoos.
We really need to count our blessings!
