Life is a highway – or at least that’s what Tom Cochrane told us back in the 1990s. Today, that sentiment feels truer than ever. 

Everyone is in a hurry. Speed walking across parking lots. Zipping in and out of stores. Scurrying from one place to the next.

No matter where you look, someone is rushing by at breakneck speed. Perhaps that’s most obvious on the interstate.

I-95 and I-40 crisscross North Carolina. They are four to six one-way lanes of pure misery. 

Everyone drives like bats out of hell. Traffic jams and blaring horns are par for the course. The scenery consists of concrete and road signs. And worst of all, they lead right through the cities I try to avoid.

I’ll never understand folks who willingly pull their cars down the off ramps onto the interstate. Me? I drive on past.

I’m more of a backroads kinda girl. I want to scooter poot; it’s what backroads were built for. That’s my style. Roll the windows down, turn the radio up, and cruise.

Through swamps, down hollers, and across ‘backer fields – pointing out cattle as I go. 

I stop at little gas stations with restaurants inside to fill up. And not just on gas. I’m known to gobble down tater wedges while gossiping with the old men sitting on benches out front.

Pulling over at roadside stands, I buy watermelons and boiled peanuts. Veggies and eggs, too.

Small towns whisper my name. And I oblige them. Jumping out of the car to take photos of the murals and admire cobblestone streets or old homes with haint blue porch ceilings.

My way of meandering irks some folks. A trip someone else could make on the interstate in three hours takes me six.

And I’m perfectly okay with that, thank you very much. 

It’s the backroads life for me.