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After ending up in the emergency room last year, I’ve tried to avoid long trips—especially long drives. But this August, I broke that rule more than a little. Last week I spent a full week in Tennessee visiting my seven‑month‑old grandson, and now I’ve driven alone all the way to Virginia to see my daughter. As I travel, certain thoughts keep surfacing: how very differently each of my children lives.

 

On the way down, a pastor friend called, and we got so caught up in conversation that I suddenly realized I had missed the exit for 287 South by quite a distance. From experience, I know that in moments like this, no matter how much I want to salvage the situation, the best choice is simply to turn around and go back to the correct exit. So I swallowed my frustration and spent forty extra minutes retracing my path. But that wasn’t the end of it. As I headed toward 78 West, I ran into a major accident—traffic had turned into a complete parking lot. After crawling forward for more than thirty minutes, I finally reached the scene. The worst was over, but several fire trucks and police cars were still there, clearing the wreckage of a badly mangled sedan. Because of all this, I had to abandon my original plan of arriving at my daughter’s home in time for lunch. Instead, I stopped midway, grabbed something to eat, and continued the drive at a more relaxed pace. Long‑distance driving has become quite burdensome for me.

 

When I drive alone from New Jersey, my mind eventually feels scattered, and a kind of suffocating pressure builds up. So as soon as I arrived, I headed straight to the trail near my daughter’s home. The woods themselves are no different from anywhere else, but today the path was flooded in several places, likely due to heavy rain. I had to take a long detour along Rock Run. And perhaps because of the recent typhoon, two large old trees had fallen across the trail, completely blocking the way. Getting past them was no easy task. Back home in New Jersey, when something like this happens, the trail is cleared by the next day and hiking is never an issue. But here, maintenance seems lacking. My daughter told me the ranger comes by only once a year to check on things.

 

Well, complaining won’t change anything. When you come to a place like this, you simply live by the rules of the place.