Where are all these people going?

There are times - most often when I'm on the road, rather than in the air - I'm awed by the number of people on the move.

Years ago... years and years ago, shortly after I completed that much anticipated rite of teenage passage which landed me my coveted drivers license, I could be sneaking driving back to OKC from a kickass party visit to Norman late at night and not see another car on the highway.

Not so in today's 24 hour culture. The traffic never stops and can be as busy at 3:00 am as it is at 10:00 am sometimes.

At this very moment, I'm sitting in Denver airport on an April afternoon and it's jammed packed with people as though it were the holiday time. My flight from Portland, Oregon was completely full. Every flight going out of here today is completely full - stand-bys aren't making it on.

Is this, perhaps, the way we're adjusting to over-population? We just keep moving and space is not a problem? Could so many people have so many reasons to be traveling at any given point in time? Is there ever a time no-one is on the road? Well, obviously, no.

Excuse me, I have to pause for a rant:

With apologies to friends who have young children, I wish parents of children who are able only to express their displeasure at a decibel level capable of rendering deafness would invest in home child care and leave them there. I get cranky when I fly - it can bring me, a normally calm and patient person - close to tantrum level. It may border on child abuse to subject a little munchkin to the torture of air travel.

End rant.

We're all traveling from here to there - alone in our cars, or alone with a plane full of strangers - for a myriad of reasons. One day, it might be interesting to take a recorder, camp out at an airport or gas station and ask people, "Where are you going?"

Me? I'm going home. The end of a trip I didn't want to make, but was inevitable. It's not the last one of this kind. There will be one more. When, I don't know - most likely sooner than later. And when I make the trip again, I'll be one among many traveling to who knows where for who knows why.

Will there be anyone wondering where I'm going?

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