Racing the Capital Beltway
Life is like a wind blowing your way, and then it won’t.
The Beltway around Washington could be used for any number of morality tales, so one more won’t be piling on.
I needed to get on the Capital Beltway a few days ago. I have circled the Beltway for as long as I’ve lived in greater Washington DC–even earlier, seeing as I’ve driven I-95 one end to the other since I was a teen.
But it had been awhile. D and I have been staying close, not wandering while the pandemic has been raging, and it felt a touch unfamiliar to be driving the Beltway. Though I was game.
Heading to a Maryland address north of the Beltway, so we were driving the heavy part past Tysons Corner, the Cabin John bridge over the Potomac, then where the lanes divide going toward I-270, and on to where the lanes are reduced. The Maryland side of the Beltway was designed by civil engineers wildly optimistic about the average American’s driving skills, so the turns are like the road course at Le Mans. Some of the curves become slalom courses in the snow. Yee hah!
But the road was clear, and I was feeling fine, Layla the husky has her head out the rear window, my 2004 Volvo was fine, we’re in a middle lane, etc. You stay in your lane, watch for entering traffic, watch for the ones changing lanes with no signals, yadda yadda yadda.
The tractor trailer drivers were using their turn signals and life was good. We made our destination and on the return trip I took another route cutting off the Maryland part of the Beltway; we were heading toward I-270.
We were all behaving like semi-responsible humanoids when I hear a roar from the right and this male with a death wish on one of those motorcycles you steer leaning forward to catch more insects in your teeth, he flashes by, blowing between the cars at speed, easily doing ninety or a hundred. A man in a hurry.
If I had happened to stray even a foot to the right at that moment, I wouldn’t have seen him. As it was, I barely heard him until he was by me. And I’d not be writing this. Because I couldn’t bear to relive seeing the aftermath, and I doubt the motorcyclist would still be with us.
Half hour or so later on down the road, coming off I-270 reentering the mosh pit we fondly call I-495, there he was again, same fat racing tires, now by the side of the road arguing with his cell phone. He’d made it there a few minutes ahead of me.
Life is short; I don’t know why you’d go out of your way to shorten it.
Some are proudly announcing they’ll skip taking the Covid vaccine shots. They say they’ll brave it out. Do any of their kin even get a vote?
