We drive to town about twice a week on average and while there are a few ways to get there, we almost always take the fastest route which is the main highway. The on-ramp is not far and since they increased the speed limit, it takes us no time to get where we need to go and right back home again.

If we don’t feel like taking the busy highway there is a frontage road we use that takes almost the same amount of time and winds and curves past several farmhouses, our favorite antiques store and bypasses the bulk of the traffic, so sometimes we use it depending on our mood and which vehicle we’re in. If we’re in the truck we take the shortest route to save fuel. If we’re in the car, we like to take the longer, more scenic drive.

We’ve lived here for almost fifteen years now and only just realized the other day that there is another way in and out of the “big city” that we’d never used. It’s a winding, curving, up-the-hills and down-the-hills back road that is SO much more fun and doesn’t really take that much more time, mostly because there is no traffic on this road.

The extra time it does take is totally worth it anyway because along with farms and fields, it takes us right through the wind farms that have been popping up all over the foothills the last few years.

A lot of the locals complained about them (and still do) but I like them. We get so much wind here it makes sense to use it to generate power and I think they’re kind of pretty. Especially around sunset.

Of course I’d prefer the old fashioned ones like in Holland, but these are much more functional and apparently generate a lot of electricity for our local area and beyond.

Which is a good thing because without all that extra power to run my AC I’d be in mast cell hell right now! 🙂