I left Spokane on Sunday around 3:30. That gave me an hour of daylight before the sunlight was fading into darkness. Fading into the abyss.

Now, for the longest time, I loved night driving. It was calming and peaceful and, when I was younger, I did it a lot. Mostly while traveling around the United States because I didn't want to waste daylight driving when I could be seeing stuff.

Or maybe I liked it because the first driving I ever did was on my Atari 2600 with Night Driver...

But then... things started to change.

I was bordering on night blindness, where headlights (or any lights) would become a massive blight in my field of vision. I couldn't see. The amount of concentration required to drive safely was headache-inducing and I was genuinely worried I was becoming a danger on the road. And so I stopped driving at night. Completely. I couldn't justify the risk... not necessarily for myself, but for other people.

And it was fine. I could always get a ride with somebody else or pay for an Über or whatever.

Then, as I was having another surgery for my ongoing injury problems, I ended up getting my lenses replaced with cataract surgery (something I documented here). And even though I was told my cataracts weren't terrible and wouldn't need to be addressed for five years or so... I could suddenly see at night again! Night drivin' here I come, baby!

So I went ahead and drove home in the dark, it was perfectly fine, I could see great, there were zero issues.

At least when it comes to my vision.

Because there will always be assholes on the road, and that's something you can get fixed with cataract surgery.

Maybe a lobotomy, but not cataract surgery.