One of the greatest joys in doing any roadtrip is finding the unkown. In these days of travel planners, GPS, smart phones, and information technology to describe every move you should take on your way from here to there, I suppose it makes me quite the dinosaur to pull out my Rand McNally Road Atlas, find the State of My choosing and pick the route that would seem to offer the greatest chance of finding something... A waterfall, a diner, an old firehouse, or just a small town that reminds of someplace I may have only been in my mind.
These journeys are my greatest therapy and on their paths are often found my greatest moments. It was standing on the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Lexington Virginia, watching a morning sun spill over the endless orange and red and yellow and gold of fall that I began again to believe in something greater than me. It was on a road outside of Ithaca where I relived the scene from Pleasantville that I have always loved-- of them driving the old car through a brilliant cascade of leaves with the distant sound of falling water providing the soundtrack.
There have been so many other experiences, other places and other times. Where it feels as though James Earl Jones from Field Of Dreams should be perched on my shoulder in miniature offering a commentary for the moment. The oddest thing is when I describe these days and people sometimes shrug and say, "But how can you do all that stuff alone?" I have to smile for it is on these trips that I am farthest from alone-- for it is on these trips that I am myself
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