I had the privilege of making a very long and stressful drive to pick up the youngest man child at college to bring him home. THIS was not according to plans. Needless to say, while I always look forward to a road trip the timing was terrible (a story for another day maybe). I packed a light bag, departed, and semi-looked forward to a long peaceful drive, new scenery, and change of pace.
There are two important background pieces to have at this time, 1) Driving in December any direction to a nearby state from our homestead can be tricky with weather and 2) I am a terrible winter driver night or day. Knowing this important information, I quickly hit, you guessed it weather and road closures in the wonderful state of Wyoming. Not a big deal, find a spot to stay, have a margarita and get an early start. I get up the next morning very early and hopeful. How bad can it be? Um let’s just say bad, like white knuckle, hold my breath bad. I honestly think I had acute tennis elbow from the rigidity of my arms on the steering wheel. I am still optimistic as I hit I-25 and beyond, up towards the Tetons and Jackson. To make a long story short. Awful, awful, awful. I am sure there was wonderful winter scenery, but I have no clue as looking left or right out my window just wasn’t happening. Meanwhile I am communicating with my spouse on the destination and how to best get there and back again. I immediately determine there is no way in hell I am going back the way I came. I don’t care if I need to drive to Utah to do it.
Luckily there are these amazing 511 apps that give you all the information you need for driving. Live camera shots, colored legends that tell you what is closed and where tricky spots are. From my location they were everywhere. Here was the deal, too late to go back and the only way was forward, not quite directly or planned but forward. I made plans to get from one point A to point B at a time, revaluate and plan out the next chunk. I rolled into Boise and we rolled right back out, with all the possible 511 options we could use. As we drove the morning of the final day I finally stopped to look around and took the picture below. I had to; I couldn’t help myself. It was beautiful, it was pull over and take a picture worthy. I think of this picture and the word I ponder is “detour”. Detour is defined as “a long or roundabout route that is taken to avoid something or to visit somewhere along the way.”
As I was on the eve of a very significant family circumstance I think about that word “detour”. We often encounter them on the road and in life. The ones in life can break you. We see detours as getting us “off track”, taking more time, the LONG way, a way to avoid a happenstance in the road (or in life). Here is what I remind myself with this current life detour. We still have to get THERE, we have to move forward-the only way is through. A detour is thankfully not a dead-end. We can kind of look ahead, reevaluate, move through a small chunk and then another. We can still get THERE, where we want to be-and there just might be something worthwhile on the detour worth stopping and seeing, just maybe.
As we approach the end of the year, maybe YOU have hit some detours, or maybe someone you care about has. That’s ok, reflect on it, see some beauty in it and know it is just a detour, not a dead end.
