It’s a routine I’ve become accustomed to over the past two and a half years: waking up early — currently it’s 5:20 a.m. — and getting on the road by 6:15 so I can get to work by 7:15.

I am what is referred to as a long-distance commuter. While commuting is not foreign to people in Tooele County, my route is opposite from most. I commute into the county, not out of it.

From my driveway to the Transcript-Bulletin office is 60 miles one way. That’s a total of nearly 500 miles in a four-day workweek.

While that sounds awful on the surface, it helps that my husband, whose job is 5 miles from our house, rides his bike to work during the summer. All things considered, the number of miles we commute in vehicles combined is about equal to other couples who both drive to work.

Spending two hours — on a good day with no traffic — commuting may sound crazy, but it’s actually the perfect time to reflect, plan my day and, most importantly, decompress. After a long day of work it’s nice to have absolutely nothing to do but drive for an hour, leaving me refreshed upon returning home.

Long commuting times also offer the chance to be productive, which I sometimes attempt. If I’m struggling with the lede of a story, sometimes I’ll think of ideas in my head, and by the time I arrive at work I just might have come up with something fabulous.

Driving time can also be wisely spent listening to audiobooks. Currently I’m on disc eight of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” I’ve found it makes the time go by much faster and is much easier than reading a 700-plus page book.

I tried to listen to “Under the Tuscan Sun” but grew bored and stopped partway through.

But commuting has its difficulties as well, like struggling to obey the speed limit of 55 miles per hour on Legacy Highway. It’s nearly impossible. When my speedometer inches higher and higher above the 55 mark, I can hear my husband — a real stickler when it comes to obeying the speed limit — in my head saying, “Safety is no accident,” as he so often reminds me.

Heavy snowfall — and especially other drivers in the snow — can, however, leave me feeling stressed before I even arrive at work. I’ve witnessed countless slideoffs and fender-benders in inclement weather. Those same debilitating snowstorms have also stranded me in Tooele some nights. And sometimes, after meetings that last late into the night, I think of how nice a five- or 10-minute jaunt home would be instead of one six times that.

Every now and then, while sailing comfortably along I-80 in the morning, I pass around the Oquirrh Mountains and look at people taking photographs of the Great Salt Lake. From that viewpoint, the open road calls my name, and I imagine myself not exiting at exit 99, but instead driving straight through to California.

My commute has changed over the past few years, as has my ride. Once I drove a 1996 Buick Regal. Now I’m in a new Ford Focus. It might be more stylish and get 38 miles to the gallon compared with 31, but the Focus certainly isn’t as comfortable as my former “grandma car,” even if it was a boat.

My drive has also become substantially less costly this year thanks to lower gas prices, compared to $4-a-gallon gas last year. Should that have continued for much longer, it would have broken me.

While I don’t intend to make the drive forever, it’s a small price to pay to get to do what I like to do.

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com