Took the long road home Monday. Option A was I-95, straight and true, 30 minutes shorter than Option B, a route north, winding, through the flatlands of South Carolina. The forgotten towns, main streets running perpendicular, a traffic light in a few. An old man sitting on a bench. A stray dog. I’m waiting for tumbleweeds to bounce off the hood. Then the uplands of North Carolina. Phone calls dropped. Podcasts crashing.
Home for local politics, a meeting in an elementary school. I somehow wound as an expert in traffic calming. “Like Upperville. Like Aldie.” Neither had been to either. Magic markers on table-length maps. A lot of ideas. Implementation of those ideas is another story. Home by 9. Dinner by 10.
A few days here and then back down the road to Aiken for the steeplechase finale. Those same old sleepy towns. Cotton fields. Roads straight and long. Shorter to there. Longer to here. The story of a road trip.
