A big smiles good day to each and all, and a we’re here all day to this beautiful new day, today, that we are rocking and rolling with. Another awesome day charging up our hills of the day, some, literally! lol
We’re tired, slightly, with the road, and have found a spot to sit and relax for a while here off the beaten trail in the Northwest, Washington State to be specific. We have a beautiful lake nearby and plenty of trails available, and we can see the blown out side of Mt. St. Helens. It doesn’t seem like it was back in 1980 when that happened, that’s long, long ago. Getting old is a memory walk full of yesterdays that fade further and further away that then throws in distinctions that for some reason noteworthy to the individual make them seem like they just happened. Some things we can’t remember when we try and are surprised to have forgotten and other things we remember even though sometimes we have no idea why we remember it. Our mind goes back and forth, earlier or later, and even though we know everything is there, as proven by folks with photographic memories, like Ed, sometimes we want to whack our self for not being able to remember something.
We’ve driven enough lately, north, south, east and west, up, down, and all around this wonderful land, and wanted to point out something that perhaps seemed the strangest to us across the land as far as driving on the roads, streets, highways, and access roads. We enjoy the roads and seeing and experiencing different areas, and for the most part, driving along was pretty much the same. In the cities or towns, the 25 or 35 mph always moves traffic nicely with the turning in and turning out, and sometimes when the middle lane is a turning lane that also helps things move along smoother. Once you get to the 45 and 50 mph areas where you have vehicles turning in and out of businesses and roads you have to be more careful, and those routes usually have stop signs or lights along the way to help slow the traffic and make it easier for folks to jump into faster traffic. Highways and major routes with exits use the exit lanes only and also have the on ramp lane merge in a reasonable amount of space to allow vehicles to work their way to their exit and to also get up to speed with the traffic before joining them.
Everywhere we drove it was pretty much the same, traffic flowed nicely except for the occasional accident or where someone realized they were in the wrong lane too late and needed to get over. Very typical driving anywhere we’ve been for the most part. There were of course the normal rush hour traffic jams, depending on the size of the city and routes available coming and going, and those are understandable as well, everyone headed the same direction at the same time is going to slow things down.
A side note, we’ve always respected big vehicles on the roads, always given them plenty of room and time and such, and believed driving vehicles that size were difficult to say the least, but after our latest adventures across the lands we have even higher respect for these poor souls forced to maneuver the roads with the rest of us on them. Time and time again we witnessed large vehicle drivers under tough driving conditions and situations handle themselves outstandingly. From preventing crashes to helping ease flow, the men and women behind the wheels of some very large vehicles were professional, intelligent, and quick thinking many, many times. There were several instances where they saved the lives of people in other vehicles that didn’t even know they were almost injured or worse and had no idea someone else had been involved or that anything happened or almost happened. Props to big vehicle drivers!
Anyways, so the thing that was the strangest to us was when we came over the mountains in the Northwest towards Seattle. It seemed to start there and persisted to and through Olympia and all the way south past Portland Oregon, and it was the strangest thing. Everywhere on the major highways and byways and everywhere in Seattle and in Olympia and a few side cities and towns on down past Portland to even Salem and Eugene, Oregon. It was traffic jam after traffic jam, before, during and after every exit or on ramp, every major road turn or branch off, and it was very strange to us because it never seemed to be the usual reasons for a traffic jam or slow down. On the highway, we would be in one long steady slow rolling traffic jam that would ebb and flow with the approaching exit or on ramp, and we counted far too many vehicles that we saw pass us that we then passed and were then passed by again as we merely stayed in our lane, usually second from the right of three or four. We would see folks come on to the freeway, cross all the way across all lanes to the far left lane, only to immediately cross all the way back to the far right lane to take the very next exit, just one exit from on to off, we were dumbfounded time and time again watching these slow moving vehicles come and go across the lanes again and again. It did not take us very long to observe that what it appeared to be was that folks had lost the ability to yield or merge and it was as if far too many of them thought that they were either the only vehicle on the road or certainly the only one that mattered, or at the very least that everyone else on the road knew what they were doing or going to do. It was bizarre to even participate in! We watched too many vehicles make their way into and then out of and then into and then out of the same lane, it made no sense. Time and time again we saw frustrated drivers from other vehicles cutting in front of them only to hit their breaks or from other vehicles waiting until the very last space to merge one way or the other, and it was probably the most defensive pay attention driving we did all across the lands. They were everywhere, weaving and bobbing, slowing then speeding up, changing lanes left or right, passing on either side, taking exits at the last second, it never stopped. All we could think was that whatever kool aid those folks are drinking out there where that behavior is the norm, we sure don’t want to drink, and we felt it ruined wanting to spend more time than we did in the area, It is very beautiful up and over there, lol, the whole area is, but the driving is ridiculous.
We are well, we are always well, and working wherever we are of course. As long as we have wifi and our phone we are all set and can keep moving forward with clients and projects.
Enough rambling though, we’ve several miles of trail we want to hike around the lake and the day is moving along, we just wanted to write the strange driving conditions down before we forgot. lol
Peace