Over the past two weeks I've spent forty-eight hours in the car. That's six full work days!

In certain circumstances, you have to make your own fun - so I put into practice the techniques of William Beaty, amateur traffic experimentalist. They work, but you won't truly understand until you get out there and try them.

. . .

A parking lot observation (I've been to one or two rest stops in those long hours):

• A fair number of Americans no longer bother to remember where they parked. They just walk out into the middle of the parking lot and begin punching the buttons on their key until they see a car blinking its lights. Sometimes, especially if a person is too short to see over the rows of cars, they just hit the panic button and follow the shrieking.