by Randy Vaughan

Created on: April 20, 2008

In the spring of '01, I was driving a big-truck, an eighteen-wheeler. I'd been driving most of this one particular night, heading westbound to the customer's facility in Indiana. I was almost there as the sun began to rise and if you've never seen a cloudless sunrise though the side-view mirrors of a big-truck, you're missing one of the most breathtaking, majestic, and truly awesome natural displays imaginable. It's a brushstroke of colors that no human has yet to mimic, a visual tapestry announcing the end of a long, dark night. Now add to that the refreshing overall resurgence of energy to face the impending new day and it's much like awakening after a night of sleeping with the angels.

I was unloaded and back on the road in plenty of time to continue enjoying the sunrise through my side-view mirrors. But I glanced back one time only to be staring into a welding torch! Gone were the beautiful hints and colorful whispers of the new day, replaced by the blinding yellow fireball that made it clear it had succeeded in beating the hell out of the darkness. And what that meant, of course, was that for about the next half-hour or so it would be nearly impossible to see vehicles moving up alongside my truck and that any attempt at changing lanes would be no more safe than if I had replaced both of my eyes with marbles.

But it was at that moment I realized something very important: My next appointment was eastbound. I was supposed to be facing the sun, not driving away from it. But driving in the wrong direction for nearly an hour and those fifty-or-so miles out of my way were worth every single moment. Certainly it was wasted fuel. Wasted time, however, it was not.

Few traffic conditions are more outright dangerous than driving into that early morning sun. You can't see the brake lights of the vehicles in front of you and turns are easily missed because even if you can see the signs, you're not going to be able to read them. The same is true for traffic lights; unless there's a steady flow of vehicles to give some clue as to who's doing what and when, the light could be green, red, or chartreuse.

All the previous is equally true, quite naturally, when driving into the setting sunonly in reverse. The blinding glare of the setting sun makes driving dangerous and gives way to the kaleidoscope of colors painted across the horizon and you get to watch the night creeping up on you in those mirrors and soon you're enveloped in the darkness.

During the day you can see everything,

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