Right now, I'm sitting on the turnpike, oddly enough behind my coworker. When I say sitting, I mean literally sitting. About 2 miles ahead of me on the highway, there is a tractor trailer overturned, blocking both lanes of the highway. Fortunately I have my powerbook with me, so I'm able to sit here and type while I listen to my stereo. I did some graphic design work while sitting here as well, and fit in a quick round of Unreal Tournament 2003. The road is pretty cold, I might add.
You see, it dawned on me while I was here in the car that we as humans have made millions of miles of concrete roads for our cars, and yet there is one thing we never, ever do on them: walk. It's really an odd phenomenon, and perhaps we just never stop to think about it, since we're so busy driving on them, but it really is an interesting feeling to get out and walk, or sit, on a highway. Especially when cars are flying past you in the opposite direction at 80 miles per hour. If I had my camera with me (and believe me, it's a rare occurrence that I don't), I'd be taking tons of neat pictures. But in the meantime, it made me smile for a minute just to get out of my car and physically walk and sit on the highway. All that concrete and steel and paint and steamrollers and jackhammers and bulldozers and manual labor doesn't really amount to much when there is a 3 mile backup, and people are reading books and resting their eyes in their cars.