The drive to work

I live six miles from work. I take one left turn and two right turns on the drive. When I started driving to work four years ago there were ten stop lights along the way. About two years ago they added an eleventh. And this week they put up the twelfth, although it probably won’t be turned on till next week. I blame Wal-Mart for both of those lights.

Two of those original ten lights are timed extremely poorly, but only in the morning on my way to work. If you have to stop at the first one, you are almost guaranteed you’ll have to stop at the next one a quarter of a mile away. An hour after I get to work they change the timing on it so you generally only have to stop at one of them. I’m not sure what they were thinking with the timing of those.

I drive out of Orem, through Lindon, and into Pleasant Grove. Lindon is really skinny and it doesn’t take long to drive through it. But there is the Lindon hill, which I go down on my way to work. It is a long enough hill that you can pick up more than 5 mph in speed without touching your gas while you go down it. There have been many, many mornings where the person right in front of me got pulled over for speeding at the bottom of that hill. I’m grateful for those people because otherwise it would’ve been me who got pulled over. I’ve learned to watch for cops sitting at the bottom of the hill, and I’ve learned when to start coasting at the top so I’m still pretty close to the speed limit when I get to the bottom. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a cop there though.

My favorite part of the drive though, at any time of the day (because I have gone in to work at 11pm before), is just as I’m approaching the Lindon hill. Off in the distance I can see the Mt. Timpanogos temple. In the morning the sun has usually broken through the canyon just far enough to light it up. At night it is lit up beyond the small house lights between where I am and where it is. Seeing it is a moment to pause and breathe and relax on my way to work. And since I’m not a morning person, that is a much needed moment when I’m driving to work in the morning.