We went out for a drive yesterday.
Well, out for a drive to get lunch with friends. We ate about an hour away from home, and it was a great afternoon - so great, we are doing it again in a few days with more friends.
Where we ate, was not as amazing as the drive was for me. As the driver, I probably saw less than the other people in the car, but it was still an amazing drive for me.
We stayed off any main highways and traveled exclusively on secondary roads. It's weird to think that not all that long ago, what we now call a secondary road were in fact the main roads of their day.
When you travel on the highway, you buzz along at highway speed, seeing the names of towns flash by as you drive past them. Sometimes the towns are not even visible from the highway, adding the a sense of mystery about them.
But when you take the roads less traveled, you often end up driving right down the main streets of towns along your way. There is a feeling of having gone somewhere and of distance traveled as you drive through a town, back into a less developed/farmland landscape, and then back into another town.
It is a sense of history, the towns, villages and settlements that people came together to build. Schools and community centers and churches marking the gathering points. Farmland and barns where people made, or still make, their living. And, inevitably, empty or abandoned buildings - homes, farms, barns and factories. Each with their own stories to tell.
But who will tell their stories?
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