Sitting on a Park Bench

Yesterday I took the Jeep in for repair work— we're reaching the stage of the inevitable several hundred dollars you have to pour into any used vehicle soon after you buy it— and I ended up sitting on a park bench in downtown New Albin. Sat there watching the traffic go by, passing through town on Highway 26.

The passing cavalcade confirmed my impression of recent years that the traditional car is now in the minority among vehicles on the road. At least in these parts, the most common vehicle is now the pickup, almost matched in numbers by the SUV. These two categories together add up to a solid majority of the vehicles I saw go by.

Of course there were also a good number of cars going by— almost all of them what I once would have thought of as "compact" or even "subcompact." There's still an occasional full-sized "big" car— what in the old days I would've thought of as a "normal" sized car— but nowadays mighty few of them.

Lots of semis and other big trucks going by. A few milk trucks. Other gigantic vehicles, hard to describe, though they might be agricultural in intent.

And several vans, two motorcycles, one Volkswagen, one station wagon, and one Hummer. By their vehicles you shall know them.