D riving toward downtown Houston on Interstate 69/U.S. 59/the Southwest Freeway (or whatever you want to call it) on any given day is a straight-up nightmare. Commuters trying to scurry home cut you off with pride, truck drivers honk their way-too-loud horns at you constantly and the exhaust fumes are enough to induce nausea.
But what keeps me from bashing my head against the steering wheel whenever I drive through what has been deemed one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country are the cascading vines that line the highway, giving life to what is otherwise an urban concrete hellscape.
Growing under the bridges where I-69/U.S. 59 cuts through Montrose, these vines have fascinated me for years. I’ve watched them wither and die after extreme freezes and just-as-extreme heat spells, but they always manage to grow back and overtake the concrete walls on either side of the highway as if nature were reclaiming them after the apocalypse…