Driving in the dark...

I know it is not terribly profound to say that the world looks different in the dark, but it is an observation upon which I am about to expound.

 

Highway 21 would not be a good place for someone who is epileptic to drive at night on a windy night.  All along the road, with the music turned up and maybe some party snacks on the passenger seat, one can get some dance moves in while driving the miles.  The road signs flutter in the wind...yes, the wind is that strong that the triangular no passing zone signs and the rectangular "pass with care" signs pivot on their poles.  This windy effect creates quite a strobe light from the intermittent reflection of high beams off the metal.  The first time I saw the flashing light up ahead, I was terribly confused, as I couldn't recall in the daylight that there was anything in the road with a flashing light on it.  Nope, just the wind.

 

I am kind of curious, too, if I can make up a Physical Law about how strong winds can blow away light waves.  The wind can be so strong at night, in combination with the low ambient light, that light just doesn't seem to travel far, especially in the periphery. 

 

Despite light reflecting off metal, there is little ambient light around.  While this illuminates the stars really well, coming from the west one might just drive right past our property without even knowing there is a single thing on the land.  We did just get a motion sensor light on the front porch, which will come on when I drive past, but before there was just the light that I turned on for Thomas when I got home.  Until then the house was completely dark, save for the green light on the chest freezer and the red lights on the router.  Very literally, one could drive by and not see the house, two morgan buildings, the tin shed, and the horse barn, let alone trees or any natural features.  Everything is set so far back from the road that headlights don't reach their beams that far off the road.  It is really quite eerie to me to live beyond sight like that, though comforting, too. 

 

And then the things you can see don't look the same as they do in the day.  I drove to Daniel and Julie's house last night, and it was so dark that I thought I missed their road.  The sides of the road overgrown with the dry stalks of sunflowers looked to be ten feet tall.  I couldn't see where their house was.  When I got to the road and turned down, the grooves and ruts seemed to have faded.  I couldn't see the trees that mark the edge of their property until I was between them.  It was the most curious thing to drive in and out, as if I had never been there before.  I am not sure why the light made the road look so flat because we all know the county doesn't maintain it in the least. 

 

Anyway, I just walk in the door and turn on the lights, and the cold and darkness fade away.  But not the wind....