That one car that randomly travels with you on the highway for a really long time

Highways can be lonely.

See, we’re all strapped in and surrounded by glass and metal, alone in the zone, at one with the windshield as we change lanes and hit the gas to keep zooming along, swerving between trucks, speeding past strangers.

But it’s this secret street solitude that makes it so sweet when you suddenly notice someone cruising the same streets beside you.

Maybe it’s a couple college kids bumping along on a road trip. Maybe it’s a grizzled trucker in a sweaty tank top. Maybe it’s a minivan with bikes on the back heading to the lake for the weekend.

Basically, it’s any car you seem to see over and over again on your trip.

“I swear I saw them before,” you might think, peeking in the window to confirm it’s the same crew. Tattooed shirtless guy with screaming kid in the black Mustang? It’s them! Bigsunglasses girls singing in summer dresses? It’s them! Slowrolling seniors smoking cigarettes with the top down in an old convertible? It’s them!

Your heart lifts a bit when you realize you’ve got company. Suddenly there’s a freeway companion along for the ride. You get to guess who they are and where they’re going and smile every time you notice they’re still driving along.

Sometimes you lose them for a while and think they’re gone. “We had a good run,” you say, before steering into the rest stop for gas and noticing their car outside the diner. You smile and shake your head as you pull up beside them.

“I knew they wouldn’t leave me.”

Sometimes you actually witness the departure at a fork in the road. They head north and you head south, so you say goodbye with headlight flashes or honks that say thanks for the trip, thanks for the moment, and thanks for the memories.

AWESOME!