View from the backseat (mostly)
JVM-You wanna know what I've noticed on this trip? LOTS of things! From my perch somewhere in the nether reaches of our minivan which, by the way, has less to do with the aforementioned pecking order than it does with choice. It can actually be fun being the backseat driver. Especially when there is no middle seat. We yanked that thing in favor of more leg room.
I've noticed that there are a lot of things 'out here' (which is what we west coasters call it) that are different than they are on the left coast. For instance, the houses are actually old. They aren't build to look that way, they really are. And they're built very close to the road. I mean, several times while I was driving I thought I might squish the toes of someone sitting out on their front porch. And if the spiritual state of our country seems like it might be less than it should be, it certainly isn't for the lack of places to attend a church. Every town, whether it's population is 300 or 3500, seems to have at least five churches on the main street alone, most of them are architectural masterpieces. This part of our country is beautiful. Also, and I'm not sure why, but there's an ice cream shop in every village, borough, township or whatever this particular community choses to call itself.
Another thing I've noticed is that there are people here. People just like you and me, going about their lives. Isn't it great that we can climb on plane on the west coast, fly four and a half hours, get off the plane and speak our own language, use our same money, wear our same clothes (okay so we have actually changed our clothes a couple of times so far) , basically change nothing whatsoever and not miss a beat? I think that's just excellent!
Yesterday we stopped in a little town (or was it a burgh?) called Cambridge N.H. and stopped in at the local one-stop convenience store to buy some utensils and CoolWhip to help with the eating of a pumpkin pie we had bought at a flea market ten miles earlier. We bought our stuff, sliced our pie and sat out front of the store in between the display of pumpkins, stuffing our faces. Of course the pie was delish so we couldn't just eat one piece apiece. We must have been there for 45 minutes all told carrying small talk with each person as they entered or exited the store. It was fun! To me, little things like that make this whole trip worthwhile. The three of us do a lot of laughing together too, so how can that not be a highlight?!!
I've noticed that there are a lot of things 'out here' (which is what we west coasters call it) that are different than they are on the left coast. For instance, the houses are actually old. They aren't build to look that way, they really are. And they're built very close to the road. I mean, several times while I was driving I thought I might squish the toes of someone sitting out on their front porch. And if the spiritual state of our country seems like it might be less than it should be, it certainly isn't for the lack of places to attend a church. Every town, whether it's population is 300 or 3500, seems to have at least five churches on the main street alone, most of them are architectural masterpieces. This part of our country is beautiful. Also, and I'm not sure why, but there's an ice cream shop in every village, borough, township or whatever this particular community choses to call itself.
Another thing I've noticed is that there are people here. People just like you and me, going about their lives. Isn't it great that we can climb on plane on the west coast, fly four and a half hours, get off the plane and speak our own language, use our same money, wear our same clothes (okay so we have actually changed our clothes a couple of times so far) , basically change nothing whatsoever and not miss a beat? I think that's just excellent!
Yesterday we stopped in a little town (or was it a burgh?) called Cambridge N.H. and stopped in at the local one-stop convenience store to buy some utensils and CoolWhip to help with the eating of a pumpkin pie we had bought at a flea market ten miles earlier. We bought our stuff, sliced our pie and sat out front of the store in between the display of pumpkins, stuffing our faces. Of course the pie was delish so we couldn't just eat one piece apiece. We must have been there for 45 minutes all told carrying small talk with each person as they entered or exited the store. It was fun! To me, little things like that make this whole trip worthwhile. The three of us do a lot of laughing together too, so how can that not be a highlight?!!
posted by Pete Vander Meulen at 6:55 PM
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