Saturday, July 2, 2016

Epic Road Trips





There is so much to be gained by experiencing the open road with people you love.  You learn a lot about a person's character spending hour after hour enclosed in a small space with them tooling down the road at speeds that make it unadvisable for one or both of you to step outside for a breath of fresh air.  
You learn about people in areas other than your own neck of the woods.  You learn about regional quirks and differences, but mostly you learn how much alike we really all are when it comes down to what truly matters.  

Van in Missouri carrying someone else's family on a summer road trip.


You see the unexpected;  some things are odd like this "zoo" along Route 66 in Braidwood, Illinois.  Some are oddly beautiful like the  two teenaged girls recently observed dancing while sitting on horseback atop an interstate overpass in Southern Illinois.  It was dusk and they appeared in silhouette gracefully swaying and dipping to some far away music heard only by them.



 On the road, you accumulate a variety of life experiences you would never have had at home.  Like the time ( last Thursday to be exact) when we were driving down a highway in North Carolina and first noticed things periodically flying out the top of a large River Valley Farm truck ahead of us.  We began to speculate about what that truck might be carrying that from time to time flew out of the truck and onto the highway and fellow travelers. 


It wasn't long until we caught up with the truck thinking we would soon see what was going on.  The truck bounced over a dip in the road, jarring its contents and sending bucketsful of something pink and jagged into the air.  As the debris began to rain down we realized with horror it was chunks of fleshy, wet dead meat.  Apparently it was slaughtering day at River Valley Farm and this truck was taking the left over parts on to whatever unfortunate place receives such things after the butchering is finished.  


A good road trip affords you the opportunity to mark an item or two off your Bucket List.  We travel through St. Louis at least a couple times each year.  For the longest time it has been my goal to snap a photograph of the St. Louis Arch as we pass through.  In my mind's eye this is an iconic photo. The Arch rises above the skyline which shows a glimpse of the industrial, river city that grew up alongside the Mississippi River.


The last time I was in the city, I attempted to mark that photograph off my Bucket List.  Look, there is the Arch in the photo above (behind the street sign right above the 2 and the 8).


Here is a shot of it on the other side of this humongous billboard that appeared out of nowhere.  And below is an attempt to capture it with some of that skyline I was hoping for.  The way I imagined it, the skyline would enhance the Arch rather than obliterate it.   


Looks that that photo will remain on my Bucket List for now...at least until the next epic road trip!

12 comments:

  1. It is so true that you get to know so much about a person when you do long driving together. I once had a broken relationship from a long driving we did not even finish. I realized I could not stand him. Drinking and Driving?!? Really.
    BTW your TTot may be broken.
    http://www.carinsgratitude.com/2016/07/wedding.html

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    1. Thanks, Carin. I had so much trouble with that link this morning!
      I can't imagine riding with someone who started drinking along the way! Stop the car!!

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  2. Amusing results with shots of Arch. You'll have to keep trying. And the little pretend zoo was cute.

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    1. The zoo had the kitschy feel that a stop on Route 66 should have!

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  3. Your snapshots sounds like mine! It's always an adventure trying to get that "shot" of something while whizzing down the road 65 miles per hour. And, more challenging than taking pictures from the car is trying to dodge telephone lines, bill boards, buildings, passing cars, and.... That was a real post!

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    1. One of these days I am getting that shot!

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  4. The photos of the arch being obliterated by the scenery made me laugh. So close!

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    1. The thing is I remember nailing that shot as a child from our car buzzing down the highway. So, I have been determined I can do it again! My husband watched me take all those photos without saying a word. Just the other day he said, You know they changed the location of the highway since we were kids, right?

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  5. I have long wanted to stop and take photos of the Hood Canal Bridge, which I cross every time I go to visit my parents (and which is the place I always feel I've finally arrived home). Just this weekend I got stopped for a boat crossing. (It is a drawbridge.) For once, I got stopped ON the bridge, rather than on the highway leading up to it. Finally, I got to take my photos!

    Glad to hear that you are having good summer adventures. :-)

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    1. More and more I am all about stopping and taking the shots when given the chance. Life is metaphor!

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  6. I can't imagine the pink chunks of meat flying out of the truck. The closest I came to that grossness was the time that cow excrement was spraying out from behind a semi-trailer that had been emptied of the cows but must have decided to let the cleaning take care of itself as he drove down the interstate. I love a road trip - for many of the reasons you write of here. My daughter and I are taking one together in September - from Los Angeles to Virginia - with stops in a couple National Parks and a few Little House on the Prairie sites, ending with a bucket list (for me at least) stay at Biltmore Estate in North Carolina before making it to her new home in VA. Bittersweet trip - she'll be so far away.

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    1. When the kids were little we went to all the Little House sites (well there is a hotel site in Iowa that isn't written about and we didn't visit) MULTIPLE times! I am imaging you will be hitting DeSmet SD and then on into Wisconsin. Remember Laura walking along the banks of Lake Pepin filling her pockets with stones to the point of nearly tearing off her pocket? The vision of my middle child in a red and white cotton dress (and freshly purchased sunbonnet) loaded down with nearly more stones than she could carry is still one of my very favorite memories. Out in the country there the Big Woods are gone and the cabin is a replica, but it doesn't matter. Seeing it through the eyes of a child (or a grown woman who read those books so many times with rapt attention!) is so great! Safe journey!

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