Alexander Leach, Editor, Night-Owl
I like to drive at night.
It’s more dangerous, sure. You can see less landmarks, especially in the countryside, with only the signs lit by your headlights. Animals are more likely to stumble out in front of you, and people sometimes get nervous when a guy in a Jeep drives down a country road at 9pm.
You also get lost more often. You can’t see the horizon, so you don’t see the signs saying the road is out until you get down it. It also makes me nervous if someone is driving behind me with lights shining in, like some kind of bad horror movie people my age mock on camera.
But I enjoy it.
I’ve always been a night-owl. I’m the kid who stayed up past midnight reading, or playing video games, or watching stars. I’m the adult who writes news articles at 1am and manually publishes articles online because I’m already up.
(Don’t worry – I sleep. I have to deliver this in the morning anyway).
Driving at night is good practice. Finding your way down familiar roads in the dark is a whole new challenge, especially when I want to take pictures.
When heading down Forester’s Falls Road tonight, I couldn’t figure out if the culvert was installed – driving down the road became a tense affair of wondering if it’d have to stop and turn back along the now-unpaved road, with a single truck following behind me who would too experience my error. I made it, however, and managed to make my way back home, without having to brave a three-point-turn in the dark.
So far, haven’t gotten lost. I suppose it would be hard to upload pdfs in the woods.
Not particularly fond of the skunks waiting for me in my driveway, either, but that’s a whole other tense anecdote.
