“The hardest thing to learn is the least complicated”. The Indigo Girls sang that. I concur. Of course, how could you not agree with anyone who can write a great song about Galileo!?
The song I am talking about, “Least Complicated”, is about relationships. But after my camping trip to French Creek State Park, I really think they were writing about traffic rotaries, sometimes called roundabouts! Rotaries are not popular in Pennsylvania, though they are becoming more so. In my life I have probably never driven in more than two handfuls of roundabouts.
So imagine my surprise, while driving on 222, when I reach the intersection at 737 where I always turn left at the stoplight, instead I find a rotary. No stoplight. I can do this, I tell myself, as I go right instead of my usual left. How hard can this be? I stay in the right lane, assuming I will stay there until I get three quarters of the way around , and just go off the ramp toward my destination. But no! Damn, I’m out of the rotary and still on 222. There were two other rotaries on the way and I am happy to report that my record with those two was one out of two. Oh my! Improvement! Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks?
To my credit, back in the nineties I managed to survive a six lane rotary coming out of the airport in Lisbon, Portugal. I was warned about it two weeks prior by a colleague who drove it earlier. He said stay all the way to the right and take the first exit. I did. Perfect. But, it is not the first exit on the way back. I think I went around that rotary three times before giving up and pulling into a gas station. Thankfully, they spoke English and they helped me find my way back to the airport rental car drop off.
On the plane back home I must have been thinking how good it is to be going to a country with no traffic rotaries.
And now this! In Berks County! One county away! The hardest things to learn are the least complicated. The Indigo Girls were right.
A Semi-retired Kind of Life 