Busy Four Lane Highway. View North Back Towards Redmond
“They look just like the gasoline attendant, staring straight ahead in some private trance of their own. I haven’t seen that since . . . since Sylvia noticed it the first day. They all look like they’re in a funeral procession. .. Once in a while one gives a quick glance and then looks away expressionlessly, as if minding his own business, as if embarrassed that we might have noticed he was looking at us. I see it now because we’ve been away from it for a long time. The driving is different too. The cars seem to be moving at a steady maximum speed for in-town driving, as though they want to get somewhere, as though what’s here right now is just something to get through. The drivers seem to be thinking about where they want to be rather than where they are. .. “(Cont.Next)
Entering Bend, OR. After having traveled the unpopulated, remote “back-country’ for most of the ZMM Routs and especially since Missoula MT, the intense traffic of Rt97, of the four lane undivided main highway South from Redmond, OR, is indeed a sudden slap in the face!! As I stood by this intense busy highway, I could feel real fear!! The fact that I had the sturdy guard rail between me and all that vicious traffic was no comfort. My heart was racing and I had the almost un-bearable panic urge "I've got to get out of here!! Here, no matter how long I waited, I could not get a vehicle-free photo of this road. So I had to settle for fewer than ordinary speeding of cars to get this photo. I tried to wait for a lull in the traffic to get this and the next two photos. As you can see, even the lulls had very, very, intense traffic!! If this traffic was bad for the Narrator 42 years ago, it is much, much, worse now!
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(Photo = 113-1327c ...... ZMM Page = 293 ...... WayPt = 357x 3442ft)