The Scenic Route

Despite constantly complaining about my commute - or more specifically, about the people in front of me on my commute - there are plenty of times when I think about how lucky I am to be traveling these roads. Some of these areas are quite beautiful.

Yesterday morning was one of those mornings where the cool of the morning clashed with the heat of the night - or maybe it was the other way around. But whichever came first, the end result was a heavy, low fog which blanketed much of my surroundings.

This picture doesn’t come anywhere close to doing the scene justice, but it was about all that I could manage at the time. A couple of miles from where I took this picture is where I come to a section of the road which follows down a valley and crosses over a river.

On mornings like this, the fog lays low and thick, hovering over the path of the river, yet it remains distinct from the upper mist which filters between the silhouetted mountains above. Behind the crest of these hills, behind the rising veils, the muted disk of the just rising sun filters through .

After the road crosses the river, it briefly becomes the main street of a small town. I pass an old grocery store, an elementary school and a post office - each of them quiet in the early morning hours. As I continue on, the road dips and winds and then climbs again, bringing me to the edge of a forest.

As I wind through the woods, the sunshine, first on my right, then in front of me, and then to my right again, flickers over hilltops and cuts through the branches until I reach the forest edge, where I travel down a sharp hill.

At the bottom of the hill, I pass a pond on my left, and then I cross over a small river. On mornings like this, both of their waters are covered with wisps of awakening fog, fog which rises in slow motion, before fading away in the early morning sunshine.

I approach another small town and the second half of my ride becomes more mundane than the first. When I run into problems, this is where it usually begins. And these frustrations often overshadow the ride entirely. But I guess that's the way it is with a lot of things.

There are plenty of times that this drive can be frustrating, and I wish it didn’t put me so far from home. But there are parts of the drive that I often overlook, parts that are quite beautiful.

Like so many things, I'm sure that someday I’ll look back on all of this, even the frustrating parts, and I’ll wish that I could make the drive, just one more time.