Guest Post by Yolanda Heiberger
My sister, Yolanda, is a freelance medical writer. The fact that she is a professional writer comes as no surprise to me as she has always been one, starting in 5th grade with some creative short stories. Her love of literature was contagious and inspired me to sink my teeth into my English classes, too. While getting her master’s degree, she taught undergraduate journalism courses. Yolanda lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband and two sons. Today she offers a guest post on rambling around the backroads.
The best roads are fast-moving, red light-free passages for modern travel. At least, that’s what I used to think. But my older son’s penchant for backroad distance cycling has taught me something about the value of taking the uncharted path once in a while. While he routinely sets out for hours-long, sometimes arduous treks on forgotten country roads and nearly deserted highways, I marvel at his appetite for exploration of the unexpected. He sometimes chides me for taking the predictable route — comprised mostly of main arteries and well-traveled thoroughfares– reminding me of all I’m missing on the roads less traveled.
And so I surrendered.
A planned solo drive from my home in Birmingham to a friend’s house in the Florida panhandle provided a good enough opportunity to deviate from the prescribed path and indulge my son’s suggestion to explore the backroads. It seems that for efficiency and practicality, you just can’t beat interstate travel. After all, you can grab a burger, get your tires checked, and dash in Wal-mart for that last minute item at any number of conveniently located exits.
And while I’m nothing if not a pragmatist, it took this pilgrimage to the beaches in north Florida to remind me of a truth I had known as a child: the South’s best-kept secrets in intrigue, humor, and charm can be found in the small towns and long-ago-forgotten places tucked along its Wisteria-laced backroads and country highways.
The monotonous drone of fast-moving asphalt under my tires ushered all the predictable markers of interstate travel — neatly spaced exit signs interspersed with an occasional bucolic scene of cows meandering in an open field, looking oddly out of place in proximity to speeding cars. An exit and a couple of turns later, a sign for the county highway heralded an unexpected show. Just around the corner from the last gas
A couple miles down the road, “It Don’t Matter Family Restaurant” provided a respite for beach-bound travelers looking for home-cooked Southern fare with a VERY laid-back vibe (let’s hope the name bears no relationship to the food).
Rows of quaint, whitewashed homes in Brantley — self-dubbed “the front-porch town” — lined its main street in watercolor splendor, almost beckoning a siren song to passersby to stop and visit over a glass of iced tea on one of those magnificent Victorian porches. And in Florala, the State Line Mini-Mall, adorned with a life-sized mannequin of Elvis out front, is only a half-mile down the road from the town’s “Welcome to Florala” sign, proudly maintained by the Daffodil Garden Club since 1972.
A few miles into my country road detour, I felt invigorated and clear-headed, anxiously anticipating the next unexpected scene and imagining the possibilities. Every crook in the road, every rise of the hill became a treasure to be savored, a gift to be unwrapped. I know from my day job as a medical writer that neuroscience has proven the brain loves novelty but seeks familiarity. And therein lies the conundrum for most of us. The demands, the stresses, the uncertainties of life pull us toward the comfortable, predictable paths with all the familiar landmarks. There’s safety in the known and comfort in the commonplace.
Yet it’s the unexpected detours in life that often hold the most meaning because of the new, unimagined vistas they reveal, full of unconsidered ideas and unexplored possibilities.
My son, it seems, has the right idea. The fast, well-traveled route isn’t nearly as much fun as the uncharted path, and I’ve been missing a lot of scenery along the way. So if we meet sometime on a backcountry detour, honk if you’re behind me and pass if you need to. I’ll be rambling, blissfully, down that long-forgotten road.
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