Old Pecos Trail

New commute route! That may not sound all that earthshaking, but commuting can have a big impact on quality of life. It’s something most of us two every weekday, at least twice. Lately I’ve needed to go home at lunchtime on several occasions, and I got to the point where I’d had it with my commute. I’m so lucky to have a fairly short commute, but the route I was taking was miserable and maddening, and I could not imagine doing that commute every day for the next who-knows-how-many years.

I have several commute options. There’s the fastest route – which involves crazy driving at high speeds and abrupt slowdowns and unexpected multi-lane changes. I tried that one a couple of times, but decided I wanted to live until retirement.

Then there’s the most direct route that I mostly have been taking. That one involves a slow, stop-and-go slog through a long commercial stretch. It consists of probably about 20 stoplights, with cars turning in and out of hundreds of commercial driveways along the way. This is the miserable one.

There are also a variety of cutting-through-neighborhood options, all of which are slow. They require a tedious number of right and left turns, and visibility is poor in the low light at night.

Finally, yesterday, I tried a last-ditch option; a curving, way-out-of-my-way rural route around the edges of town. It’s an old historic route, and the northern part, closer to the center of town, has scattered historic churches and buildings on large grounds. The southern section is rural.

It’s probably at least half-again as long as the direct route. But it was lovely. Low traffic and the beauty of rural New Mexico. I tried it again this morning and was 7 minutes late for work.  This new route is well worth getting up 7 minutes earlier!