“Two Roads….”

‘Two roads converged in a desert,

 and we – we took the one less traveled by,

 and that has made all the difference’

          Actually, we decided that the last thing that we wanted to do was travel any more than we needed to on the accursed Interstate Route 10.

          Miss Garmin, our mostly accurate and adept Travelling Soothsayer, recommended that the route to Flagstaff be voyaged by retracing our steps and head East on the 10 and hang a left at Phoenix and proceed northward on the 17.

          We did not want to do that.

          We wanted to go a different way.

          Travelling while retired is taking a toll on my 66-year-old psyche that always strove to take whatever path, at whatever cost, in order to arrive at whatever destination, early.

          Not on time.

          On time is for Losers.

          Early.

          Early is for winners.

          In retirement, my battles have changed. They no longer are centered around my, or someone else’s deadlines. It is actually quite refreshing!

          The only Deadline that I am concerned with now has the root word of the previous italics-enhanced word in it.

          So, throwing Miss Garmin’s recommendations to the wind, and cringing at the thought of incurring her wrath,

( “Re-routing again! Look you idiot! How many times am I going to have to do this?”)

We hung that left about a hundred miles early.

          In the thriving metropolis of Desert Center.

          Desert Center does have a Post Office (serving the several inhabitants of it’s thirty square mile designated borders. It also has two towing companies (which are kept busy servicing the desolate roads in the area, salvaging inept folks that try their hand at Four-Wheeling in their little rented two-wheel drive vehicles with about 4 inches of ground clearance) and a California Road Department Depot.

          That’s it.

          Our left turn started our ‘Journey into the Abyss’ by directing us onto RT 177 North. We needed to be on this road for 117 miles, destination Interstate 40 in Needles, California. You may be familiar with Needles. It is the town where Snoopy’s mustached, hat-wearing brother, Spike lives.

          We did not see Spike.

          Back to the Road Less Travelled.

          I am going to post some of the photos that I took looking forward from the Flight Deck of the ‘Desert Tortoise’, as we did not exceed 50 mph the entire way.

          Nor did we want to.

          The scenery, albeit somewhat repetitive, was fascinating and we never got tired of it.

          Our only complaint was trying to navigate through all of the traffic on this congested by-way.

          The photos will illustrate this point succinctly.

Now for your viewing pleasure, I’ve thrown in two more at the end to see if you had the patience to wade through boring, repetitive Desert Landscape illustrations !

So we took the Road Less Traveled, and guess what?

We were early!

Early because we didn’t have any particular time in mind.

Early because we didn’t have a schedule

Early because we’re retired and just wanted to go to Cracker Barrel and then retire for the evening!