November 1, 2008

•  …we’re back home! It had been a while since the two of us had taken any sort of real vacation. Plans had been made and abandoned, airfares compared and guidebooks consulted, routes charted and then cast aside. Favorable dates came and went, and suddenly the calendar pages remaining for the year 2008 were few…until one day we finally just took off. With no itinerary other than a vague outline, we let the road lead us. And what did we find on our journey?

  There was flat farm land….

                                  

                                  

  Hill country…

                                   

  And majestic mountains.

                                   

  We were warm….

                                   

  And cold.

                                   

  There was color….

                                  

                                  

  And the absence of color.

                                                                 

  We saw manmade monuments….

                                     

                                     

                                      

                                     

  And nature’s own incomparable handwork.

                                     

                                     

                                     

                                     

  There were animals of the wild sort…

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                       

  And of the domestic sort.

                                      

                                      

   

  We drove under gray skies…

                                   

  And blue ones,

                                   

   on good roads…

                               

  and scary bad ones.                                 

                              

  The wind blew…

                                      

  And then it was still.

                                      

  The sun rose…

                                   

  And the sun set on us, ten times in all.

                                   

  There were old signs….

                                  

  and new ones.

                                 

  After covering more than 3000 miles through a land of contrasts, we gratefully returned home to our place in the Ozarks, and glad as we were to see it, we realized once again that home is different for everyone. Ours is not built in the middle of a teeming metropolis, nor is it set in the middle of a vast prairie

                                    

   with no other home in sight. It is not on the exalted mountaintop, and neither is it in a secluded canyon. We cannot begin to see a great ocean, but nary a desert can I find in our local landscape.

  If I had to put a label on us, I’d say we’re about average. Our home is almost right in the middle of the country, in a landscape that is sort of hilly but not too rugged that you cannot get around easily. We have four seasons, with some hot and cold extremes and all the pleasantness in between. We have neighbors, but they aren’t close enough for us to look into their windows at night. There are towns for when one needs a town, but they don’t crowd out the country. Pretty average.

  The problem with being average is that one gets to thinking everyone else is the same average. We begin to assume that everyone else thinks like we do, looks like we do, lives like we do. So one of the good things about getting out and driving around the country is seeing differences. Diversity. There are plenty of contrasts in this great land, and I’m not speaking just of the physical ones. We need to see how others live, to hear the differences in their voices and opinions, to think of how they view life. There are different challenges, different talents, and different tasks for different people.

  Travel is an eye-opening, educational experience for me, no matter where the road leads. I love looking at every sort of landscape that passes outside the car window. I love hearing accents and eating different foods, smelling different aromas and noticing different plants growing. What a privilege it is to be able to experience and enjoy these differences within our own country. And the best part of any trip? Coming home!

  Our welcome-home committee:

  

  Mimis love knitting little caps to keep little ears warm–one of my favorite at-home things to do…isn’t home grand?

                                   

  • 10:24 am
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