In which I learn to appreciate life's "shortcuts"

Driving with my mother is always an adventure, from fielding questions as to who is on the radio (her guesses, in order, are bizarrely Coldplay, Linkin Park, and Green Day), to lurching to a stop anytime anything remotely resembling a squirrel appears in or near the road. However, one driving quirk is particularly prevalent: her love of "shortcuts."
After living in the same general area for 20 years, my mother has developed an affinity for the vast network of side streets that honeycomb Los Altos and Mountain View. She will veer off the beaten path at the drop of a hat, plunging into some new route she has concocted that she swears is faster than the usual one. These "shortcuts" generally involve a fair amount of driving as we twist and turn down various residential streets, perhaps leading an observer to wonder whether we are really saving time. That remains a valid question, though my mother will regale skeptics with endless theories on time saved by avoiding traffic lights, and the inefficiency of endlessly slowing down and speeding up. Personally, I have given up trying to reason with my mother and meekly go along with her, obediently following her directions left and right through maze-like backstreets. To her credit, the woman who remains perplexed by the spelling of the word "pickle" must have an internal compass that would make a Boy Scout weep with jealousy, because I have never gotten lost on one of these alleged shortcuts. I'll admit I have had my doubts, but though it defies all reason, we emerge time and time again, unscathed in the Safeway parking lot after 30 minutes of constant right turns.
These" shortcuts," aggravating though they may occasionally be, illuminate one of the finer points of my mother’s character. Her methods of saving time (term used loosely) do not include slamming on the brakes at the last possible minute when you can’t make a yellow light, or punching the accelerator the minute the light changes back to green. Instead, she takes the road less traveled. She stops to admire a freshly painted fence or a newly constructed house. Once, her desire to take a particular route stemmed from a street lined with huge poplars, whose changing leaves formed a vivid orange canopy over the car. Yes, it can be aggravating to wend endlessly through labyrinthine backstreets, but I have come to enjoy it as a reminder of my mother’s tireless ability to see the beauty in the mundane, and her desire to share that with the world. I hope to take her philosophy with me to Australia, and to explore my fair share of "shortcuts" down under. Here's hoping I inherited that sense of direction!