Always had an Affinity for...

Being a passenger on numerous family car trips as I grew up, trips to cottages, campgrounds, towns and cities with my friends, on auto tours when Dani was young and with Chris and Dixie in trucks, cars and our motor home, I became an expert at perusing the edge of the road.  As well as taking in signs, shops, fields, lakes, mountains, sand dunes, barns, forests, animals, trains, windmills, fences, wildflowers, woods, churches, homes, barns, murals, wealth, poverty, storms, sunrises, sunsets, rivers, waterfalls, planes, clouds, deserts, trees, hydro towers, reptiles, buildings, birds, bridges, insects and people doing just about everything!

   
That list could go on and on but the fact is, with a sense of curiosity and an observant eye, a passenger in a vehicle can widen their world looking at the array of colours, textures and messages that exist between "your ride", the curb and those ten to forty feet beside you.  I rarely read or do anything but look out the window when I am a passenger; I love and appreciate the experience.

I think Mom was partially responsible for my "love of the edge".  No matter where we were going, she often said "LOOK!!!! LOOK KIDS!!!  Yup, there were always things to see, like a deer running in to a forest or a giant Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan statue or a modern building with shiny blue glass.  Of course that is the purpose of a road trip, to see stuff!  But I always enjoyed the sights close to the car, some of them blurred by speed, altered by raindrops dancing across the window or partially blocked by a fence, bridge or tree trunk.

When I was around eleven years old, the family passed a car accident and Mom yelled "DON'T LOOK!"  Of course that request only makes you want to look and I did.  I still have the image of what I believe was a dead body.  Ok, so some times, the view is sad but observing that small area along the roadside can feel like a private prize.  I believe there are others out there who have that affinity for that almost meditative experience watching the roadside go by.