New is a relative term. Just because something is new does not mean it is better. Nor does it mean it was just created. All it means is it was recently discovered by the beholder. That fact was reinforced recently when Hubby and I drove to Arizona for some summer sunshine in the middle of January. We’ve traveled the same route for ten maybe 15 years and although I always look forward to the tee shirt weather I always dread the stretch of freeway that goes through downtown Las Vegas. My husband is diabetic, lost his eyesight a few years ago and no longer drives so I am the official chauffeur in our family.
Locals call the city center’s intersecting freeways “the spaghetti bowl” and no matter what the time of day traffic is always snarled and congested there. Last year construction and confusing directional signs complicated the trip. I missed a connector, ended up on the wrong freeway headed toward the wrong city, got off the freeway, drove about a mile along The Strip, found an on-ramp, got back on the freeway and discovered it was the exact same freeway headed the same wrong direction. I got off again on the exact same exit, drove back along The Strip to the same on-ramp, then drove another block or so to another on-ramp and took it. That time I was on the right freeway headed toward the right destination. By the time we got out the other end of the city my hands were shaking I was so stressed.
I told friends about how I’d taken “the scenic route through the heart of Las Vegas not once but twice” and was advised of an alternate route through the city that everyone but me seemed to know about — a route along Boulder Highway that avoided downtown and the freeway completely. I tried that route this year and actually enjoyed my trek through Sin City.
When my children were little, my daughter came home from a friend’s birthday party once all excited about what she called “the newest fashion in theaters. … It’s a big building and you park your car in the parking lot and walk inside and sit in seats and they show the movie on the wall in front.” She explained. I realized she’d only been to drive-in theaters.
After this year’s pleasant trek through Las Vegas I discovered that it was the original route through the city before the freeway was built. Now I feel like my daughter when she discovered walk-in cinemas. Somehow everyone knew about my shortcut but me. It was the old route but it was new to me.
