Whatever happened to the Sunday drive?
They used to be a regular thing when I was a child, and it seemed like most people did something similar. Age wasn't a factor either, I can recall my great-grandparents doing the same Sunday drives, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with my brother and I, but rarely the same route or places.
The drives were as much about getting out as they were about seeing someplace new. In their own way, they were drives of discovery. And at a pace that made discovery possible. There was very little getting on the highway to rush someplace, the drives were usually on a secondary road and at a speed that encouraged looking around.
I those days, we didn't have the four (or more) lane highways or divided roads designed to make travel faster. Our main roads were two lane, with occasional passing lanes. There were not as many trucks either, you mostly saw cars on the road on weekends. Once you were off the busy main roads, speeds slowed, and traffic seemed to all but vanish.
We never seemed to have a destination in mind, stopping when we felt like it. And in those days there were plenty of places to stop. Gas stations were everywhere, and there were corner stores and ice cream stands to give everyone a chance to stretch their legs, have a drink or a cooling ice cream in the days before air conditioning in cars was common. Driving with the windows open meant you heard the sounds of the countryside - machinery working in the fields, the sound of tires on asphalt and wind blowing in the car carrying the smell of hay fields if you were lucky, or the smell of manure if you weren't as lucky.
I think it's time to roll the windows down, turn onto a secondary road, and enjoy what the drive has to offer.
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