Oh America!

My sister-in-law chatted on how fun and exciting it would be to be able to pack up and just drive across the United States over our last dinner together in Ohio.  So many of my friends and acquaintances held similar sentiments.  Over frozen yogurt with my college roommate, spaghetti with an old friend and on the RTA in Cleveland with a new friend, I tried to see my life through other's eyes.  It is full of excitement and mystery.  Jumping seamlessly from one adventure to the next.  Not getting the job at Northwestern necessitated drastic measures.  I had to move!  Why I had to move I'm just not sure.  I love my family, loved being with old friends and new friends but just didn't FEEL right in Ohio.  I so often do things based on feelings.  Intuition is another word for that.  How this new chapter ends, well we just don't know but I can take you through the prelude.

Yes, I have been extremely fortunate in the adventure department and many other realms that made those decisions possible.  Yet it was with some trepidation that I packed up my indigo sedan with my few possessions and headed out west for the third time in my life and the third move in little over a year.  Once again I had the sensation of jumping without checking to see if there was a net in place.  My life of excitement wrestles with the uncertain and gets a chill from its frugal financial security blanket.  I am still proud of being able to pack up everything I have into my car and head west but how many 30 somethings would boast about that?

And so it began.  Once on the road, things began to change.  I was saddened by a few near misses with friends and not fully thinking things through before hopping in the car but I also new that my inner compass would not let me relax until it was firmly pointed and heading west.  Everyone should get the opportunity to drive across the United States.  Everyone should but oh how few of us actually do.  This country is grand!  It has taken me many trials and tribulations and 2 years living in the remote countryside of a third world country to be able to admit to the greatness of the United States of America.  Our foreign policies can make my stomach turn, political ads fill me with dismay and the educational system brings me to tears but I have come to realize how lucky I am to have been born here and what a special place we have created.  I also recognize that it is still in creation and we cannot stop now.

But I digress; everyone should get to drive across the USA!  I passed through fields of amber waves of grain, apple farms, windmill farms, trees turning the colors of a sepia rainbow and miles and miles of corn.  I met people in every state I passed through and you know what?  They were kind, down right nice and genuine citizens just leading their everyday lives.  I was inspired to pull off the interstate in Idaho as I was driving through farms populated with windmills.  Who ever would have thought that giant metal or plastic white windmills turning on a prairie farm could be so breathtaking?  I left the highway and was soon on gravel roads.  I passed farmers tending their fences and tractors harvesting grain.  Miles and miles of farms with few houses or anything else in between.  These are the people that make the United States.  They are working the earth and putting food on our tables.  At one point the sun hit the wheat fields just right and it looked as if they were shining or better yet, there was an unearthly glow like what a halo might look like on the tops of the fields.  The wind turbines slowly turned and I felt sentimental.  Who knows, these could have been (and probably were) GMO fields using an array of fertilizers and chemicals but I pushed aside those thoughts for a moment to recognize the salt of the earth.  Pesticides and GMO's aside, the life of a farmer cannot be easy.  Our United States have it all.  We really do.  And I saw just a small subsection and it filled my heart.

And then finally...

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

Really, the sign is misleading.  I am not sure what colors they are talking about.  I've lived in Colorado and I see beautiful mountains, aspen trees with twinkling leaves and wildflowers for a short vibrant ripple in the summer but I wouldn't really describe Colorado as colorful.  It's good to be back.