We are almost home from our latest adventure, took our little RV out to explore Quebec and The Gaspe Peninsulain Canada......it will be four weeks tomorrow and I am ready to get back to normal for awhile.
Yesterday, when it was my turn at the wheel, we were moving west on the highway heading from Pennsylvania into Ohio. I was watching traffic, of course, but also scanning the grassy and/or hilly areas next to the road.
We did a lot of traveling along this route between Chicago and New Jersey, Wisconsin and Massachusetts....the kids were young and it was summer roadtrip time to visit one set of grandparents or the other. This was a long time ago....no personal video players to watch a favorite movie....earbuds in so no one else had to share. I think the kids, after awhile, had some kind of now old-fashioned tape player so they could listen to their favorites while we turned the dial for NPR or a local country station.
But we also played a lot of typical pass-the-miles sort of games. The alphabet game, writing lists of all the different semi-truck companies, counting cows....”I See Something....”. All of these would now seem incredibly boring or stupid I’m sure.
But yesterday I remembered the game we invented trying to identify wildflowers as we sped by at 60 mph. I had a small reference book in the front seat and we learned to spot a lot of different flowers as we raced east or west. Tall Joe Pye Weed, tiny yellow birdsfoot trefoil, wild daisies and purple loosestrife (we called that one purple pointy-ups). I saw soft blue chicory, bold yellow dandelions, milkweek, orange hawkeyes, and a few brown eyed Susans.
The game went on for years...and we would record the date and place of each new sighting. And on each trip we recorded the date and place we discovered a new-to-us flower. As we played, the game would provide entertainment for 30-45 minutes nefore the back seat passengers would begin to grumble. “He’s touching me!” “She’s breathing my air!”
Signal to look for a wayside, enjoy a snack or picnic lunch and run off some of the pent up energy.
Wildflowers along the roadside.....not weeds.....Nature’s beauty she shares with us. I still pack the book on our travels. Look out the window......
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