Driving With the Windows Open

My dad was born to be a blogger. He writes up his perspective on things and e-mails them to me from time to time and they are always heart felt and touching.

Recently he was pondering about how few people drive with the window open any more. There was a time when AC in a car was a luxury and most people during the hot summer would be seen with the windows down, arm out and tunes playing.

Now, you see nothing but windows up and everyone isolated from everyone else on the road. It got me thinking.

The world we live in now allows us to interact and connect with people without ever opening the windows.

I can sit here and type these words and somewhere you can sit and read them. Throughout this we have no chance of physically interacting with each other.

I'm a big advocate for the "beer and coffee" approach to life, which besides being a great album from Matthew Ebel, is really about making sure you sit down and truly interact with other people beyond the screens in your life. That you open the window and enjoy the company of other people face-to-face and away from all the confines of our social networks.

Every time I read a travel post on We Blog the World, Legal Nomads or any of the other travel sites I love they fill me with a new appreciation of the location they are covering. But, just like driving down the road with the windows up, I can only appreciate it so much until I actually travel there myself and take it all in.

Lately, I've been driving around with the window down a lot more. The hot summer air feels great and their is always a liberating feeling as you get on the highway and crank up the tunes. The kids found it weird the first time we did this, but have since embraced it.

I caught myself playing Superman with my hand out the window the other night. I haven't done that in years. Of course I hadn't, because the windows are always up.

So much life is going on around us every day. Stop and think about how if the window or walls are up, how are you ever going to experience it all?

And am I the only one that finds it weird there is no longer any hand signal for put down your window? The old fashion rolling signal doesn't work any more. :)

Have a great weekend!