A week without radio challenge

Saturday when driving home from a busy 24 hours with family, my radio began to annoy me. I couldn’t find a station I liked so I turned it off. And I drove home in silence. And I never have my radio off when I’m in the car alone — I do when I’m driving with someone — it’s common courtesy for me .And I found out I loved the silence. Just my thoughts, the road noise and no noisy radio. I’m finding the world is a very noisy place — as in environmental noise.

So this morning as I pulled out of my driveway I started to turn the radio on…and I decided not to. And now it’s turned into a week-long challenge of just listening — and with my windows down on the way to work, I heard a lot:

* I didn’t realize there were so many crickets.

* My car is very noisy and likely needs a tune-up.

* The mechanical crossing arms at the railroad tracks makes a whirring noise when they are listing (after I sat and waited for two trains).

* I could hear two men talking as they pulled in front of me to turn.

And I was generally more alert, more in tune with my driving.

My goal is to make it to the weekend without radio. I may just find out a lot of stuff about the world around me from the view of my car.

I think next week’s challenge will be a week without social media.

Cheers!

B.