A Very Familiar Route...

Saturn Rocket Exhibit at the Alabama Welcome Centre.
Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Images of industry in Ohio.

This year we are retracing our steps and it is very hard to believe that this will be our third year returning to the Gulf and Perdido Key. We came upon the little resort quite by accident and had not intended to stay, that first year, more than a few weeks. The lure of the sea air, the beauty of the pristine and quiet beach and the wonderful people we met there are compelling.

This year while driving south with the Silver trailer in tow, we travelled with two fewer companions, having lost our two cats to old age this summer just a few weeks apart. The roads travelled were familiar and as such I was not so compelled to pull out the camera at every new turn, rather I enjoyed revisiting the places, remembering how it felt to see them the first time. Is this our signal that it may be time to move on, to explore new places in the years ahead?

We crossed below the two smallest of the great lakes, travelling through wine country and remarking how blue, how cerulean blue, Lake Erie could seem on a sunny but cool fall day. Moving south into the heartland and seeing the vast expanse of the farmland of Ohio, dotted with industry, and city scapes, and with the swell of religion rolling across the landscape in waves, evidenced in billboards, sculptures, places of worship and rough hewn signs. Moving into the south through the rolling hills and beautiful landscapes of Kentucky and Tennessee, contemplating what it might have been like long, long before the Interstates were there, when trails consisted of two thin tracks from horse drawn wagons and when the early inhabitants hunted and fished in these beautiful forests and rippling rivers. When the crispness of the night sky and the multitude of stars were gazed upon by folks who had no idea about autos, or trailers; folks who would have laughed out loud if you told them that one day people would be uploading their musings to an invisible network for strangers to read and live vicariously through the writings of others.

Yes, I am looking at these familiar scenes with fresh eyes, I am allowing myself to think beyond the first impressions, to imagine the past or the future while I experience the present. It feels good. Familiar feels good.