Family Road Trip

There are many things that come to mind when thinking of a family road trip. For some of us, it means spending excruciatingly long hours in the backseat with our siblings, listening to our parents grumble with each other and complain about traffic, or spending time away from our friends whom we've been looking to spend some time with since summer started.

For me personally? All these things come into play. After all, what family doesn't nip at each other's throats after a few hours packed into a vehicle amongst the family pet and haphazardly strewn piles of luggage? But a road trip is so much more than that! Take my family for example. Tomorrow we're all headed up to Upper Michigan - the U.P - to visit relatives and such. I'm particularly excited because my Aunt from Pennsylvania is visiting and none of us get to see her that often. Albeit my excitement extends farther than that. Upper Michigan has always been such a beautiful state, so unmarred by cities and industrialization. I can't tell you how many two-lane highways we run into on the way up there. Albeit, yes, they make for a slow and monotonous drive with hundreds of erect pine trees on either side and flat, barren countryside until it seems like the same page in a pop-up book is unfolding again and again. But those lonely stretches of highway are so much more. Yes, the land is barren that they cut through, and yes, the small farms that dot their shoulders are dilapidated and struggling to get by...but there's something so stark about that kind of beauty.

Insignificant towns are another occurrence along these two-lane highways. If you blink once, you'll miss them. But like I've explained before in my blog post entitled "Where The Green Grass Grows" I happen to love small towns, and the countryside in general. So perhaps my fixation and passion for them isn't so inexplicable after all. There's something so charming and homey about the weathered, clapboarded buildings hugging the twin gravel shoulders of those two-lane highways. The one and two story old houses, with sagging facades and tired lines but tidy, well-kept lawns and gardens, hinting at humble pride of their modest dwellings. There might be a bar, or a family-owned diner where the locals and passersby gather and mingle as one, getting caught up in friendly small town banter. Albeit my own relatives don't live in one of these small-town jewels, the neighborhood they live in is still all the more captivated. Dotted with historic homes and steep, narrow streets.

After reading this, you're probably thinking, I thought this blog post was entitled Family Road Trip. And it is! ;-) But to a lifelong writer at heart, the scenery that is passed beyond the windows of the family van between where we live and where we going, is just as much a part of every family road trip as the trip itself is. Often times as pine tree after pine tree blurs past my window, giving the illusion of a watercolor smeared by it's artist, my thoughts will wander and I'll think about what life might be like in those small towns, or how farmers slave out a living on their dilapidated farms. My brother will call me weird, wondering what I could possibly be looking at when in reality there's nothing to look at! How could I explain to him that I was in fact looking at my thoughts, painted before my eyes from the canvas in my mind.

So in reality, those monotonous miles laid out again and again on either side of those narrow highways aren't so bland after all. I guess, to a habitual and inspiration-lies-everywhere writer, no barren stretch of land or random small town flying by isn't merely something to be dismissed, but a potential story just waiting beneath the surface, waiting...for someone to look beyond the wide open spaces to what lies within.

If you ever get the chance to visit Upper Michigan yourself, take a second look at the small towns and farms you pass on those lonely stretches of highway, and look beyond the surface. You might surprised at what you find. :-)