THE other day my wife and I headed out to the local mall and other nearby points. First, we needed to stop at a furniture store then the mall, then a fabric store. The mall stop was to drop me off so I could do some walking. You won’t find me in a fabric store unless I’m buying felt for our round kitchen table that doubles as a poker table.

I recalled from the last time we lived in this area that instead of going out on the main road, I could take a back road called Rock Road. It’s been a long time since either one of us was on Rock Road, but I was sure it would get me to the furniture store just as fast as I could on the main road.

I was wrong. It’s so scenic and photogenic that we took our time. It’s also very curvy and I almost ran off the road a couple of times because I was watching the scenery and imaging where I would stop to photograph on the way home.

A few hours later we came back on Rock Road and I took several high dynamic range photos.

Taking Rock Road reminded me of an article I read when I was a beginning journalism professor. Editors were surveyed about what they wanted in journalism graduates and the results were rank ordered. Knowing grammar was on top, I believe.

Editors were also given a chance to comment at the end of the survey and one of them said what he really wanted in his reporters were people who took a different route to work every day.

I did that the other day and I’m looking forward to finding other different routes as I drive to the mall and other points. In the meantime, what once was the road not taken has become the road now taken.