Old College Drive.
See, we were on College Drive, the road that heads right into the Portsmouth campus of the local community college down here, and the road on which Walmart is.
And to our left was Old College Drive. I love old roads like that... especially the ones that have gotten replaced by newer, larger roads, and generally retain the name but with "Old" as a preface.
Old roads like this usually are small, windy, unfriendly to snowplows and sometimes even most cars. They lead away from civilization and the bustle of city life, and show you a glimpse of a quieter existence.
(The only exception to this that I can think of is Old Keene Mill Road in northern Virginia -- the major throughway of West Springfield. Ick.)
Kurt and I went to the Eastern Shore over spring break just because. Because I'd never been across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Because I'd never been to the Eastern Shore. Because I'd always heard how pretty it was.
It's gorgeous over there.
We ended up in Wachapreague, Virginia, after a while -- a tiny town on the water, a town clearly suppported by its waterman, a town boasting a home in the shape of an octagonal lighthouse.
A town with tiny roads... little one-lane roads between the houses standing close together like godo friends. As we drove through the town, I could imagine what that little town must have been like before cars... A tiny town where everyone knows everyone else -- in a good way. When your neighbors looked out for you and made sure things were all right.
My father and I would go driving on random Saturday afternoons, and it was always a treat for me when he decided to go exploring through the unpaved roads in Nebraska that led to people's farms.
I am just fascinated by history. I want to know how people lived a hundred, three hundred, a thousand years ago. I'm not so much interested in the politics and the events of history -- I want to know how these people lived. I want to know what kind of clothes they wore every day, not the ones they wore to church or to have their photograph taken. I want to know what an average day was like for an English governess 150 years ago, what a day was like for a southern belle all those years ago, what it was like in day-to-day life for Harriet Beecher Stowe. I want to know how people talked to each other, whether it really was as stilted as it is in Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I want to know how people cooked, and cleaned, and raised their children. I want to know what schools taught and whether it's true that the curricula were much harder back then. I want to know how people shopped at the markets in Pompeii. I want to know what people did for entertainment in the German states of Martin Luther's day.
Man, I wish time travel were a reality....