TRIPPIN'

The Open Road.  

P O S S I B I L I T Y.

Dotted lines and painted lanes that lead to new places. New faces. 

Landscapes never dreamed.  Experiences never imagined. 

I am Trippin' this week; Northeast to Southeast. 

Grab your stuff. I'd love you to ride shotgun..... 

Gray skies?  Adore them.

They promote listening and thinking. Rather than squinting.

Three hundred miles cruising across slick pavement -  dodging  radar - makes a Trippin' jambalaya of AM/FM/CDs/Ipod a necessity. 

Three hundred miles of Secret Service Shenanigans, Infuriating Papal Nun-sense (sorry, I meant NONSENSE) and NFL Draft has my eyeballs and lids feeling pasty.

But forget the glue and eyeballs. Answer a question that has plagued me for years: Why does crystal clear reception always descend into a fuzz-fest during the final five minutes of really interesting, and lengthy, reports on NPR?

Hold on! Eva, Droid Navigator, speaks. Time to leave Highway for Country Road!   

Sunshine pours through clouds onto slices of mountaintop.  

Surely someone can invent a way for drivers to watch the road, and the landscape at the same time?  

Yikes!  Accidentally veering across the double yellow line, because I just caught sight of.....

THIS!

Holy WOW!  

Pulling over. Photos must be taken.

 

No, I am not trespassing.

If moms and dads don't want their ponies photographed, they shouldn't let them hang out by the road.

"Here, Pony, Pony.  Come smile for me and my blog!"

Wish I had a carrot. Or an apple.

Shouldn't have mentioned the apple.

Now he wants one.

Can he get under a fence like my puppy can?

Do his mommy and daddy have a shotgun?

Time to get back on the ROAD!

Two-way traffic.

Putting the camera down.  

There are other barns ahead to ogle.  

High on a hill there's a lonely goatherd, lady-oh-a-lady-oh-a-lay-hee-ho! 

And a rolling creek. And a purple mountaintop.

That bluebird song?  

Memorizing it.

 

Shush. Clack. Whooosh. Whistle.

That bluebird song? 

Mesmerized by it.

Pulling into town.

Sleeting. Hailing.

Still, there are locals on the horizon!

And spring!

And GOLF!

Decision made.

If Husband agrees to buy one of the old Victorians in this town, we will move here, I will take up golf, and finally use those clubs he so hopefully purchased eight years ago!

Poor local golfers. They don't know that when I swing, the ball ends up creatively veering toward any flag on the course except the one in/at my hole. (Does this sentence even make sense?)

Begin rehearsing, lyrically and in scales - so as not to annoy the bluebirds: "Four! Four! Four! Four! Four! Four! FOUR!"

Grass. Trees. Mountains. 

Sky. Sun.  Clouds. 

Air. Light. Wind. 

Spring.

Life is a gift.

Heading toward town,

OVER rolling hills.

  

 

 Steeple 

rises. 

 Beckons. 

Centuries spent greeting  visitors.

"You have arrived. Welcome home."

How many brave warriors leaned against these rails? Stepped through that door?

I'll never know their stories.

But these walls, this porch, quite proudly do. 

 

 

If plaster and wood, brick and concrete, tile and glass could talk, oh, the tales they might tell.

Of babies born, couples wed, graduates celebrated, widows distraught.

Joys and heartaches of generations. 

The life of a town.

 

Glimpsed and imagined.

Trippin' on the Open Road.
 

So hope I'll discover it again some day. Beyond memory.

Till then,

Onward.