A Musical Detour

[1]

Every night while driving home from a hectic day at work, my three-year-old twins quarreling in the backseat, I take a short detour. I turn off the gridlocked highway, onto a stretch of Route 66 that is, surrounded by arid New Mexico hills. When we’re nearly three miles into our detour, I roll down the windows. Looking pointedly into the rearview mirror, windows rolled down, I say something about not throwing anything out of the car, but neither boy is listening. I check my speed. [A] Carefully, I steer toward the fog line. “Here it is, boys!” I yell at the backseat, the passenger-side tires finding the rumble strips etched into the asphalt.

[2]

Normal rumble strips create that loud, grating noise when you drive over them—like a built-in alarm for drivers who drift too close to the road’s edge. These strips are different. The boys abruptly stop their squalling as the car begins to vibrate. Then, instead of that jolting warning noise, we hear the distinct strain of the song “America the Beautiful.” [B] The road is playing us a song.

[3]

I’ve been taking this detour out of Albuquerque for two years, ever since these musical rumble strips were installed. City planners wanted to find out whether the novelty of hearing a snippet of song would give drivers an incentive to obey the speed limit; the tune is only recognizable if they’re going a reasonable forty-five miles per hour. Whether this strategy works, I don’t know. [C] For me, this brief musical interlude is a charming curiosity, a welcome interruption in my work-week slog. Even though constant traffic has worn down the musical rumble strips and warped the sound of some of the notes, there are currently no plans to restore the strips.

[4]

After the last one of the notes fades into the darkening sky, I glance back at the boys, who have been lulled by the wonder of the song. [D] I stop worrying about work, about how many toy cars might have gotten lost between there and home. Until then, I feel like everything is going to be just fine. [*]