detours and undeterred

When going on a road trip, one must make concessions. You have to give up some small part of the experience to gain the whole. If you choose to take the ‘blue highways’, you’ll see much of true America, but either you won’t get far, or you’ll spend your entire day trapped behind the wheel of a car. You might miss some interesting little things, if you take the interstate, but you arrive quicker, allowing time to relax and enjoy your destination. Each divergent decision reveals to us a different scene, a different slice of Americana.

But at the end of the day, perhaps, I subscribe stronger, to a philosophy that has suited me well these past years. That, like many things, it is ALL about the journey and not about the destination. No matter where you end up (as long as you were trying to go somewhere), that is where, for the moment, that you are supposed to be.

This is not an admission of a belief in fate or predestination, but a realization that HE who is in control of our lives, sees much, and may often direct us to places we didn’t know we needed to be. (granted, now I’m speaking both philosophically and geographically.) And that much can be learned ‘along the way’ if we are not always 100% focused on ‘getting there’.

Road trips certainly hold this to be true. The world is too big, there are too many opportunities for us to be waylaid, and there is much to see between here and somewhere. Detours on the road (and in life) can become some of the best times.

Yesterday, though, tested the limits of this philosophy. After we had dried off from the morning storm and gotten some hot food/coffee in our bellies, we set out to drive 500+ miles across a few states. With the sun shining, the music playing, with my best friend at my side, it seemed like nothing could deter us. Wrong. As we progressively got closer to our destinations, detour after detour, flooded river after closed road, derailed our plans for a simple 9hr drive.

Needless to say, after driving through a partly flooded interstate, we became intimately knowledgeable of the back roads of corn-growing, flag-waiving, truck-loving Nebraska. We must have been diverted off our path 3-4 times by a sign impelling us to find a different route.

11.5 hours later, the arrival at Ponca SP, on the cliffs of Nebraska, overlooking the wide Missouri river just a Lewis and Clark had done (awesome!), was a long time coming but well worth it. We stumbled upon a quiet, secluded camping spot in a grassy field at the end of a road. Dinner, smores, fire, relaxing. And now I enjoy a crisp-air, birdsong-filled, quiet sunrise this morning, all to myself.

I’ve seen a few detours in my life and on the road, and I’ve benefitted from each one. Yesterday was no different…