Driving at night in the country

I'm tired, so I get in the car and drive to my hotel.  It's dark out.  An all encompassing darkness not often encountered by my city eyes.  I'm driving, alone.  The tail lights ahead of me, two cars, suddenly veer and disappear, but I can't see the turn.  The houses to my left come to an end, there is forest to my right.  Headlights barely give off enough illumination to catch the turn to the right as I come upon it.  A sudden wash of sodium glare from the gatehouse cuts through the darkness:  a lonely artificial island in the night.  I stop, reach to dim my lights, roll down the window, grab my paperwork, as a gloved hand waves me forward.  The woman at the security check-point steps toward me and reaches for my gate pass; eyes me and my stupid owl sweater (stupid, but warm, and the night is cold), looks down at the paperwork, reads it, looks me over again, hands it back, then steps back to wave me through the gate.  Up ahead one car comes toward me, then nothing else.  I pass over the first speed bump before realizing I haven't turned the lights back to full.  I switch them over: it doesn't help much.  I pass the second speed bump.  A few hundred feet ahead a single yellow streetlight burns near a small out-building a somehow welcome sight, even though I know it is empty of people.  Ahead, only darkness, forests on either side.  I'm wide awake, checking the automatic locks, then again, for a sense of security.  I'm fully alert now, my eyes wide, scanning the dark in front of me, trying not to think of horror movies.  Telling myself that the dark figures up ahead are driftwood, trees, stumps; not some person waiting along the side of the road to jump out in front of me...and then wondering what the plan should be if one did?  But it's not.  And the figures are only driftwood, and trees, and stumps.  It's just a drive to a hotel.  Further along, I can see lights of a town glittering across the water, behind me, the yellow light can no longer be seen, and only darkness greets my gaze out the rearview mirror.  The smell of sulphur rises up to my nose through the ventilation system.  I'm passing through a wetland, then the beach to my left.  I glance over to see if the odor is from a low tide, but the tide is high, the water glistening in spite of the darkness.  Overcast, no stars or moon.  Up ahead, abandoned cars in a parking lot of the Exchange, the Commissary.  Ahead of me a car coming toward me makes an abrupt left in front of me, and I am alone again.  Yellow lights flood a gas station off to my right, but I go forward.  At the last moment, see the swerve in the road to the left, to my destination, up the hill.  A mostly full parking lot greets me.  I can see a woman at the front desk, the door still open.  I pull into a parking spot close to the building.  Grab my bags and lug them to the entrance.  It opens for me, the woman looks up and then away; a family plays a card game by a Christmas tree.  I see the carpeted stairs to my floor, climb them, enter my room, and phone home.  I've arrived safely, as I knew I would.  Alone, and now too awake to sleep.