(Once again I find myself catching up. This blogging in a composition book is more work than I thought. Sorry for the dry spell...)
Crossing the Atchafalaya Basin, on I-10 in Louisiana, means driving over what amounts to a bridge thirty miles long over a seemingly endless swamp. The water's high right now, which makes it look more like a lake--except for the trees with water up to the lower branches. Pretty, still.
And it occurred to me how much more of it I'm seeing this way. In a truck cab, it's as if I were sitting on a kitchen chair bolted to a car roof, looking down on everything. Guardrails hide little from me anymore.
I've thought before about how handy that is in heavy traffic, seeing far across the sea of stopped cars and anticipating the next slow movement--but I'd forgotten the tourist thing.
I used to ride Greyhound between Nashville and Atlanta in my youth; and I remember now how spectacular it was to round the curve on I24, high above Chattanooga, and see the city lights spread across the valley.
In a car you can't see it.
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You used to could.
(I realize that sentence is a grammatical abomination. It is, however, how enough people of my acquaintance express the thought that I have to stop and think how it might otherwise be phrased. More often than not, by the time I've come up with an alternative the moment is gone.)
When I was doing SCA traveling routinely, I could see it. When I visited Chattanooga early this year, I could not see it for the trees now lining the I-24 approach.
I cannot say I envy you your job, but I often envy you the things you see in the course of doing it.
I never saw it well from a car window, either. The truly nice views (in the olden days) were from a bus window.
The view is indeed one of the great compensations for me. Besides the money, of course...
Oh man, I remember when my father and I used to take road trips north from Atlanta, and we would always go around that curve in I-24. The first time I saw that I was twelve, and five years later, I knew trucking was the right job for me. Now, I just have to wait to become of age.
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