I was in Dothan, just south of the Walmart when traffic headed north backed up because of a multi car accident. I could see at least 5 LEO vehicles in the median and left lane and a tow truck in the left lane. I was already in the far right lane. Maybe 30-35 cars were up ahead trying to merge into the right lane. A Bonnie plant farm truck crept up alongside me and I gave him space so he could merge and keep moving. I have a soft spot for truckers, coming from a trucking family and my Daddy always told me to be a safe and courteous driver sharing the road with trucks. A large black pickup tailgated him into my yielded space as well, which was fine with me. We were all gonna get where we needed to be if we just kept creeping along. But the car behind me honked at me, as if to say “WTH! Go on!” My immediate flesh thought was to roll down my window and extend a middle finger salute for his rudeness. Then my better angel kicked in to give him the benefit of the doubt and I thought “No, maybe he was expressing solidarity with me for being a courteous driver. I’ll roll down my window, wave at him and give him a thumbs up.” Then I thought, the last thing these officers need is a road rage incident on top of this crisis so I ignored him and went on. All of a sudden everyone in front me seemed to be allowing jammed up cars in the left lane to merge and LOL! in less than a minute the entire left lane was clear and we had all kept moving slowly along. It’s strange how one’s mind can work when not otherwise occupied. LOL! From 2/25/21
3/25/22
Today I drove to a favorite sparsely populated beach spot that is less than 2 miles from my house. The beach traffic this time of year is a congested mess on front beach road and back beach road. If you’re a local and know the area well you can avoid a lot of that if you use middle beach road and various cut throughs. I made the mistake of turning onto back beach road and it took us about 15 minutes to go through 2 lights and make 2 turns to get to our destination, traveling the 2 miles, creeping along in traffic. On the way back I used the secret, local-only knowledge of the route to come back the shorter way, which took about 3 minutes….. and we never had to get on front beach or back beach road except to cross back beach at the light nearest my home. Challenge met! Joy! I have the same strategy in town, studiously avoiding 23rd Street and as much of 15th Street and Hwy 390 as I can all the time. My car is showing in town gas mileage of just over 25 mpg. I’m pretty happy with that considering I once drove an Expedition that got about 15 mpg.