Anytime I want to go home from school or vice-versa, I know I have a long drive ahead of me. I don't tend to look forward to it, but I do look forward to finally getting it over with. Here are some thoughts I had driving home for Thanksgiving break:

1. "I was supposed to leave an hour ago. Why am I just now getting on the highway?"

When your school is fifteen minutes from the highway, but you end up taking a 15-minute detour to get dinner, it will take you infinitely longer to actually get going. Especially at five o' clock on a Friday evening.

2. "Why can't you other drivers just learn how to zipper?"

For those who don't know, when traffic is going at a crawl and two lanes have to merge, you're supposed to employ the "zipper" method. This is where the lanes alternate and each car lets another car in front of them, like a zipper. Properly used, the zipper method lets traffic move much quicker and smoother. Unfortunately, any time I am in this situation, no one else seems aware of this method. I can't tell you how many times I've been cut off this way.

3. "The only perk of leaving after sunset is that I don't have to deal with the sun in my eyes."

When I travel to school, I go north and east. Sometimes, I happen to leave in the morning, so I end up battling the sun a little bit. When I travel home from school, I go south and west. It seems like I almost always end up driving against the sun for several hours, and the sun visor in my car does not function all that well. I end up doing a lot of squinting, and I always get a headache from it.

4. "Time to stop for ice cream."

The school I go to is less than half an hour from my grandparents' house, and my family has been making trips up there for years. A couple years ago, we found this amazing ice cream shop approximately halfway between here and there. Now, it's almost routine to stop there for a quick scoop and a stretch.

5. "Why are other cars' headlights so bright?"

My eyes are pretty sensitive to begin with, so when I end up passing a whole line of cars, I feel like I'm about to go blind. The whole "stare at the white line" deal has never worked for me, so all I can do is hope that no one is cruel enough to leave their brights on.

In short, I don't think anyone actually enjoys driving five hours, but knowing there's ice cream in the middle makes the drive a little sweeter.