Did I Mention I Hate Not Being Able to See?

Had a tense drive home from Eugene this evening.  Interstate 5 bogged down to a stop at Albany (only 40 miles into our 120-mile journey), so we bailed off the freeway and jogged west to Highway 99.  Now, Highway 99 runs parallel to I-5 (sometimes concurrent with it) all the way up the Willamette Valley.  It is the “old” road upon which the Interstate was based. 

And while the traffic on Highway 99 was moving, unlike that on the interstate, it is a two lane road that goes through, rather than around, all the little Podunk towns between Eugene and Portland.  And our late start out of Eugene meant that half our journey would be made in the dark—since it’s pretty much dark as the inside of a pocket around here by 5:00 pm, these days. 

What a nightmare!  My old eyes are in no way vigorous enough to drive 50 miles on a sometimes twisty two-lane road, in the dark, in the rain.  The road is not lit and poorly striped; and every set of headlights that passed left me blind for one or two interminable seconds after they whizzed by. 

This is an age-related disability to which I have not become accustomed, and it’s hard to say which emotion won out after the ordeal--exhaustion, fear or anger. 

All I know is, I’m so physically depleted from that hour of stress driving that I can hardly see the keyboard for all the yawning.  Maybe I should look into getting a pair of those “night vision” yellow sunglasses.  I’ll happily consider any suggestion from any source as to how not to let my diminishing eyesight seriously impair my ability to go where I need to go, when I need to go.

I HATE not being able to see.