free-flowing America

July 10, 2017  •  Leave a Comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The trip is the trip. Time is ethereal when going 70 mph seated. The constant purring of tires, the hypnotic white lines keeping you honest and safe, the privacy and freedom of the open road, the American landscape whipping by like a free-flowing stream of consciousness. Heading northeast, the desert terrain becomes fertile, Navajo jewelry gives way to Hillbilly crafts, roadkill alters from armadillo to possum to raccoon to skunk the further up you go; flatlands dotted with grain silos (seen from a distance like castle turrets, like NASA rocket launch pads) give way to rolling hills and forests of lush birch and evergreens; big grim penitentiaries fenced within bucolic farmland are heralded by road signs that read “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers”; one-horse hamlets of clapboard houses and swaying crimson barns have names like Athens and Rome and Cairo and Mexico; the slowness of village life coming to a virtual halt on the 4th of July holiday, no crush of merrymakers here but rather a deep lull — do these dusty old shops and shuttered eateries ever really open? Along small-town main streets, "Hometown Hero" banners flutter on lamp posts, honoring soldiers from wars past and present — a patriotic ode to military power ingrained in the American psyche; metro areas like St-Louis or Syracuse or even Wichita tug and tempt and intimidate all at once, places where history occurred, where the present pulsates, where culture and vibrance and maybe even a falafel sandwich can be found, but also where squalor and decay and despair too often reside.

And that’s just a start. But first, pit stop: Montreal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

route 13 PA

 


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