We spent the last couple of days driving through northern New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The fall colors are so beautiful that the pictures just don’t do them justice. We went from Boston to Louisville, KY, and the trees there were so much greener that far south. Jim was visiting with a man at a loading dock outside of Boston and told him that he sure lived in a beautiful part of the country. The man said, “Really?” He said he’d lived there his whole life and didn’t really think about it much. He said that their plant sends a lot of shipments to Laredo – a concept that must have meant little to him since he’d never been there. I think if he took a trip from Boston to Laredo, he might have a greater appreciation for his home near the Appalachians, with so many rivers, mountains, and trees. I guess it’s easy to live somewhere for so long that you don’t see its beauty anymore.

When we drive back into Oklahoma or Texas, I’m always struck by the openness of the landscape and the massive sky filled with big white puffy clouds. I also love to see freshly plowed fields or ones white with cotton bolls. East Texas is pretty, too, as is Texarkana, with all of its pine trees. And I will always have images in my mind of the Big Bend country and Alpine. I think what must be nice about the New England states is the definite changes in the seasons. There were stands everywhere with sweet corn, pumpkins, and fall flowers for sale. The air was cool and crisp and it really feels like the approach of autumn. Of course, they pay for it with the very definite shift into winter, a season I don’t know if I’ll relish when crossing the area in a truck! That’s when I’ll be longing for Texas and warmer weather.

It’s also interesting to pass through so many historic areas of the country. We drove around Washington D.C., Baltimore, and drove down through Gettysburg on our way to take the load to Florida from Ashland, Virginia. It’s amazing to think of the areas that played a role in the Civil War, then pass by markers describing areas significant to the Revolutionary War almost a century earlier. We tried to imagine what it would be like to ride a horse from Virginia to Philadelphia or to travel through some of the thickly forested areas by wagon. It’s hard to imagine. Then there are the Indian names given to rivers, lakes, and townships, and you have to think back to an even earlier time to imagine what they must have felt at trying to protect their homeland. You can see why the settlers were so attracted to the land and also how alienated they must have felt at times.

I saw a billboard near Cleveland as we were coming back through that said “Visit America’s Northern Coast.” It made me think – we all talk about the East Coast and West Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, but the cities that border the Great Lakes certainly qualify as coastal cities as well. I would have to taste the water for salt to be convinced that I wasn’t standing on the shores of an ocean. Until we started traveling with this job, I never thought of Cleveland as being located on the shores of Lake Erie or Chicago and Milwaukee on Lake Michigan. And also Toronto and Buffalo on Lake Ontario. We’ve traveled to 26 states since we started a little over two months ago. It can be exhausting at times, and some days we’ll be having dinner and I have to ask Jim where on earth we are, but it’s also neat to listen to the news or the weather and have something beyond an abstract notion of what these places are like and their geographic relation to one another.

Ok, maybe I shouldn’t have drug Jim onto the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyworld”, but it seems to hold true when you’re moving around a lot. Josh told me I was crazy for riding it again, because you ride through it on a boat and hear the song in about 30 different languages before you get out of there, only to have those little voices ringing in your ears for days. He still remembers it from when we went there over 10 years ago, and cringes. I’m sure Jason does, too. When I told Josh that we rode it, he just said, “Oh I’ll bet Jim just LOVED that!” Oh well, he was a good sport about it, anyway.

Well, I don’t have much more to add other than to say I hope everyone is doing well. Please stay in touch and keep us in your prayers. We’ll do the same. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures. Love, Jim and Sandy