There's something magical about driving the back roads at night. · 3:23am Nov 20th, 2017
Out in the sticks, Missouri roads get twisty-curvey on the hills. Like a roller coaster without the rails. One of my favorite things to do is drive those back roads at night, through the thickest woods, miles from the nearest source of light.
It's a pure blackness. Those back roads aren't very wide, and the canopies stretch over to meet in the middle. No moon. No stars.
Just you and eighteen feet of road. Nothing else in the universe. No light. No people. No matter. In this empty universe, you watch trees and asphalt fade into existence, a holy act of creation ex nihilo by the god of gas pedals. And in your rear view mirror is the culmination of the universe, the un-creation, heat death of all things as they fade to red in your tail lights and disappear. Always pursuing creation, just outrunning oblivion.
Oblivion chases you indeed. A single moment of inattention could let your tires slip off the edge of the pavement. There's no shoulder, nothing but trees. Hard, unyielding trees, less than a second in age and destined to cease in another. So you keep your eyes glued to that single yellow line, letting the trees blur past in your peripheral vision. Blue ghosts swim in the darkness, afterimages of the yellow warning signs you ignored, appearing and disappearing as quickly as the signs themselves.
Even if your reflexes are perfect, and your attention never wavers, your own oblivion may be just around the corner; a loose cow, a patch of ice. Or simply an unfortunate motorist, stopped just over the crest of a hill.
She begged me not to leave her, so I slow down. I turn on my high-beams. I go home.
Used to use the back roads of where I used to work.
It is quite enjoyable.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Tennessee mountain roads. 750 horsepower, six cylinder turbocharged fury roaring it's defiance into the night. 80,000 pounds of steel, rubber and glass. A simple whim and she roars and lunges forth for me. A moments absence of thought? She'll slaughter all she can. A razors edge at 110, riding a beast from the depths of Tartarus.
Living on the edge of existence used to be one of my favorite pastimes.
I, meanwhile, can't think of anything more anxiety-inducing. D:
My best night driving experience:
Late winter, maybe February. Ground fog, about the level of the hood of my 78 Chevy C-10. It was a full moon, and the air was the temperature where it burns your nose just right when you inhale. Crystal clear. Stars shimmering overhead, full moon, I ran with my headlights off since I could see better that way. Middle of nowhere in Michigan.
Next morning, there was hoarfrost on every front-facing surface on the truck, glittering like diamonds.
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That does sound beautiful.
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It really was.
The other neat nighttime driving experience was that there was a mint factory in Kalamazoo, and sometimes on those really clear, really cold winter nights (the one where the snow’s glittering like diamonds and the stars are crystal-clear) the entire east side of town would smell like peppermint.