Taking a road trip is not the same thing as transporting children or driving yourself to the airport. A real road trip is an opportunity to place your life in the rear view mirror and regard it with a different perspective. I miss road trips. How am I supposed to gain any distance life if I so rarely leave Ballard?

I didn't plan to take a trip last week. I certainly wasn't looking forward to attending a four-hour King County poll worker training session in Renton, but I was resigned. It's so rare for me to drive the car without guilt anymore - I just had to let it go and head for Highway 99 southbound. The Olympics had partial cloud cover, but the visible peaks were stunning. Strong winds were pushing the waters of Puget Sound in a strange direction, and the surface looked simultaneously ruffled and sleek, like messing with the nap of a cat's fur. It was unexpectedly pleasant to be at the wheel - no phone, no computer, just music and a chance to sort overcrowded details from the last few weeks.

I was behind a trademark orange/green Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel concrete mixer all of the way up 39th until the first exit south of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Motorcycle cops were plentiful so I was content behind the lumbering truck, despite the fine layer of concrete mist on my windshield. In the previous days there had been an engagement party, a memorial service, family gatherings...it was possible I had not been alone in days. My car had transported a stranger and Ballard Blossom arrangements from a memorial to a nursing home; vases of white rose and orchids wedged behind my driver's seat.

I returned to surface streets and headed inland on East Marginal Way. With the sun making a late January appearance workers in the control tower at Boeing Field looked like silhouettes; I had an unexpected desire to be up in the tower with them, looking over the runways.

I drew up to what I thought was my destination but there was no one there; it finally clicked that the words new location had really meant something. I grabbed for the written directions, remaining optimistic and even calm as I crossed the Tukwila Parkway and went beneath the new light rail track. I don't have a Global Positioning System; nor do I have a good sense of direction outside of the Ballard grid. Suddenly I was swooping through neighborhood streets - seeing rivers and bridges that I didn't know existed so close to Boeing Field. I was gloriously late, and somewhat lost. Columbia Tower was in the distance and I knew I would find my way north eventually. I also knew that I wasn't going to make it to the poll worker training.

When I was on the viaduct heading north a little voice inside began to sing out, "road trip!" Immediately my surroundings looked different; the billboards unfamiliar, the gantry cranes more orange than usual, the clouds towards Magnolia looked regal. When my daughter was younger I used to drive so much - the Saturday morning trek to Haller Lake for dance lessons, soccer practices at Bitterlake, music lessons in the North End. Always running late, turning too soon and finding ourselves on a dead end.

I darted a glance behind the seat to locate my purse and noticed loose greenery left over from the massive bouquets from the service for Bob Gaddis. I smiled in sudden memory of the 82-year-old woman who'd been buckled back there, next to flower arrangements that went from floor mat to roof. The woman's name was Phyllis Rose and she was one of Charlotte Gaddis' oldest friends, up from Eugene by train for the memorial. She waited in the backseat while Charlotte and I carried the flowers into Columbia Lutheran Nursing Home. Phyllis Rose found the Chinook Book, a coupon book sold by non-profits to promote environmentally friendly businesses, and started reading it. When we finally Phyllis Rose said, "It's amazing what I'm learning from this book. Did you know that in most commercial chicken breeding operations, hens are only allowed outside of their coops once a day?"

That's how I want to be at 82, still curious and interested in learning new things every day. It's what I love about wandering the streets of Ballard and feeling that I have license to ask questions, learn more about my neighbors. But so many days go rushing past, with no time to give a second thought to what I've observed. So little time to digest the rich details of everyday life; so little time to look in my rearview mirror and see again the white haired woman in a brown suit, with a brooch on the lapel.

As I neared Canlis and the Aurora Bridge I began to look forward to home, as though I'd been gone for days and not an hour. In the spirit of the road trip I engaged "cruise control" on my car, in part to keep myself at 40 miles per hour if speed traps were still in effect. I laughed out loud at the sensation of crossing the Aurora Bridge without applying the gas; cars passed me right and left. The speed limit felt almost as slow as passing through a car wash in idle, when scrubbing brushes whir over the car and then you're expelled with a lurch on the other side. I took the first exit off the Aurora Bridge, ending my road trip to Tukwila and back, taking stock of my life at 40 miles per hour.

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.