The Road Less Traveled Allows For Stretching

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by... to allow for stretching with less traffic whizzing by.

Okay, so it's actually 2 roads that go around mountains to get to my destination, not through the woods. Nonetheless, I take the back roads, not the highway, thus taking the one less traveled.

This pretty much applies whenever I have to drive to another town, no matter how far away it is.

Traveling out of town for a CT scan

Coming up at the end of May, I have a CT scan, and it is in another town close to mine. Having to travel to this other city is due to staff shortages at my local hospital and COVID. When I saw this was the case, my husband and I made a plan to drive to the other town on one of his days off to figure out where we needed to go.

I am glad that we ended up doing that, because it was not easy to find the hospital.

Taking the backroads provides more places to stretch

Even on the trip to find where the hospital was, we took the back roads. Sometimes, on the highways, there isn't always a place to pull over and stretch. This is where the back roads come in handy, as there are usually a lot of different places to be able to pull over and stretch.

Even if it is just driving an hour and a half away to get to the destination, I need to stretch at some point during that.

Feeling safer away from the highway

Another bonus of not having to stretch on the highway is not having traffic whizzing by and making me feel anxious that they may clip our car going 110 kilometers per hour (68 miles per hour for U.S. readers). When we are on a backroad, I don't feel as pressured to get back on the road because I don’t feel unsafe as I do on the highways.

Encountering bad drivers makes my legs tense up

I also like taking the back roads because they are less traveled, and I don't have to encounter as many bad drivers.

Unfortunately, because of all the near misses I have had, when we encounter a bad driver, all my leg muscles tense up. This is something that can end up lasting for 10 to 15 minutes afterward and not something I'm always aware has happened even though I know that this pretty much always happens.

This is especially true if there are a bunch of bad drivers that we encounter in a short period of time. I always try really hard to be mindful of my body while it is restrained in the car, watching for the slightest indication that my RLS is about to attack. Having my legs tensed up for longer than 10 minutes straight really aggravates my RLS.

I made a connection between my RLS and the Robert Frost poem

I hope you do not mind my opening to this article. I had an English teacher who was a huge Robert Frost fan.

I know that this gets used a lot in pop culture, but it is also something that sticks out in my mind because I love exploring new areas that I've never been to. When I started drafting this article, my brain instantly made the connection to this poem what with favoring back roads in order to stretch my legs.