Orange Cone Complex

This summer, I've quickly noticed that every single road, street, highway or passage for necessary travel is undergoing construction at the same time.

Anyone else?

I recognize that there is always construction somewhere. But in the hottest stretch of the summer, on all routes to crucial destinations in my routine, it can be a real drag.

With no exaggeration instilled, roads to my school/work, the highways to my school/work, the road to my sister’s school, and the road to church/Starbucks/grocery store are all under some sort of construction at this given moment.

Including Olive, Highway 364, and my school itself, .

There’s traffic. Bumpy roads. Roofing nails that puncture tires. Angry drivers. Dust. Gravel. And the construction workers you just want to console for working so hard in the blistering heat.

Although at a given moment in my travel time, I may be frustrated because I'm already behind and now the lanes are merging into one unexpectedly, I can't really stay frustrated for long.

Because I realized last week, sitting in a half-hour’s worth of traffic that made my journey to work take twice as long as a usual semi-traffic-less day, that once the construction is complete, it’s going to be really nice to drive on these particular paths.

They’ve already opened up a new exit for me to take to get home. It breaks up congestion, speeds up the process and there are less people cutting me off.

That’s always nice. Not being cut off, I mean.

While there’s still fine-tuning necessary and orange cones blocking off one of the lanes, the new exit for west-bound 364 has already heightened my travel experience. Pair up with Florence & the Machine in 4:30 traffic and you’ve got yourself nearly not minding sitting in your vehicle with the A/C on full blast longer than necessary.

And it was there, during one of my private jam sessions of joy, cruising along the fresh cement, that it came to me: we humans are giant, emotional construction projects.

I’ve had that thought every time I’ve encountered construction on the road: Construction work really is not that great, but the end product makes everything a lot better.

And we could always use more friendly drivers.

On a side note, I am very excited about the final product of a long construction period at Missouri Baptist University. Check out to find out what changes have been made, and see it in person this fall.