The wind is my teacher
Mostly I experienced yesterday as being about weather, and I'll get to that, but first I'll talk about my experience of traveling a bit.
Yesterday I became aware of moving through the countryside too fast. I'm passing by so many people, so many types of lives, and I feel curious about them, but I'm trying to get somewhere, so I keep rolling on to my next destination.
Similarly, I'm aware that I've become overly focused on getting to my destination. In particular this clouded my judgment about what to do when I entered a wind storm.
Now for the weather...
I saw some threatening looking clouds yesterday, and I drove on some recently-rained-on pavement, but not a drop hit my windshield. When I arrived at my destination, I took this snapshot of the weather map for Texas, and I'm not sure how that was possible. The red arrow points to where I started my trip today, and the blue arrow points to where I ended my trip today. That weather system was moving North and East and I was moving South and West.
The main weather feature I experienced yesterday was, without a doubt, wind.
The first leg of my trip was smooth and pleasant. It was a little breezy, but nothing particularly remarkable. Same with the second leg of my trip. But around the time I stopped for lunch, something changed.
The last leg of my trip was, in a word, horrible. I knew it was supposed to get windy, and I had some previous experience with driving the van I rented last Spring in the wind, but the combination of wind speed, wind direction, a 75-mph speed limit, and heavy traffic made this exhausting. The trucks passing me didn't seem to have a problem with the wind gusts, so I think my van was the perfect combination of tall, boxy, and light weight to get knocked around. The sustained winds were around 30 mph coming directly from my right side, and since I didn't know when a gust or lull would hit, I was constantly steering slightly into the wind, and I had to keep a tight, tense grip on the wheel at all times. A number of those gusts were strong enough to actually change the direction my van was moving and I had to wrestle it back in line. I was on a road with a speed limit of 75, but I didn't dare go over 60. I got a short break when the freeway took a turn to the left and the wind became a tail wind, but then the freeway took a turn back to the right and the wrestling match began again. I've rarely been this glad and relieved to get where I'm going.
This does raise the question of why I kept going. I could have pulled over at a truck stop, I could have slept the night in my van if I really needed to. None of the available options occurred to me while I was wrestling against the wind. I had a singular focus -- to get where I intended to go. It's time to work on my attitude about this road trip thing. I may have to learn how to relax. :^)
This morning the winds are half the speed of yesterday afternoon, and the forecast is for them to continue to diminish as I move toward today's destination. I also checked the weather map this morning for the area of the country that I came from. The little black marker in this map shows where I started this journey. Paducah, Jonesboro, and Hot Springs all show up on the map. I've dodged a lot of weather on this trip, and my intention is to learn as much as possible from my experience with the wind yesterday.
Yesterday I became aware of moving through the countryside too fast. I'm passing by so many people, so many types of lives, and I feel curious about them, but I'm trying to get somewhere, so I keep rolling on to my next destination.
Similarly, I'm aware that I've become overly focused on getting to my destination. In particular this clouded my judgment about what to do when I entered a wind storm.
Now for the weather...
I saw some threatening looking clouds yesterday, and I drove on some recently-rained-on pavement, but not a drop hit my windshield. When I arrived at my destination, I took this snapshot of the weather map for Texas, and I'm not sure how that was possible. The red arrow points to where I started my trip today, and the blue arrow points to where I ended my trip today. That weather system was moving North and East and I was moving South and West.
The main weather feature I experienced yesterday was, without a doubt, wind.
The first leg of my trip was smooth and pleasant. It was a little breezy, but nothing particularly remarkable. Same with the second leg of my trip. But around the time I stopped for lunch, something changed.
The last leg of my trip was, in a word, horrible. I knew it was supposed to get windy, and I had some previous experience with driving the van I rented last Spring in the wind, but the combination of wind speed, wind direction, a 75-mph speed limit, and heavy traffic made this exhausting. The trucks passing me didn't seem to have a problem with the wind gusts, so I think my van was the perfect combination of tall, boxy, and light weight to get knocked around. The sustained winds were around 30 mph coming directly from my right side, and since I didn't know when a gust or lull would hit, I was constantly steering slightly into the wind, and I had to keep a tight, tense grip on the wheel at all times. A number of those gusts were strong enough to actually change the direction my van was moving and I had to wrestle it back in line. I was on a road with a speed limit of 75, but I didn't dare go over 60. I got a short break when the freeway took a turn to the left and the wind became a tail wind, but then the freeway took a turn back to the right and the wrestling match began again. I've rarely been this glad and relieved to get where I'm going.
This does raise the question of why I kept going. I could have pulled over at a truck stop, I could have slept the night in my van if I really needed to. None of the available options occurred to me while I was wrestling against the wind. I had a singular focus -- to get where I intended to go. It's time to work on my attitude about this road trip thing. I may have to learn how to relax. :^)
This morning the winds are half the speed of yesterday afternoon, and the forecast is for them to continue to diminish as I move toward today's destination. I also checked the weather map this morning for the area of the country that I came from. The little black marker in this map shows where I started this journey. Paducah, Jonesboro, and Hot Springs all show up on the map. I've dodged a lot of weather on this trip, and my intention is to learn as much as possible from my experience with the wind yesterday.
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