Barn Voyage!

Recipe for an exotic summer/fall excursion (in my life these days, anyway):

1. Get in car
2. Drive south and west in varying Midwest-sized distances
3. Visit family, attend celebration or service
4. Observe barns and huge cornfields
5. Drive back

I live in the beautiful boreal north, the land of canoes and rocky hiking trails. I used to yearn for this birch and pine forest when living further south in more agricultural areas, and travel up here every chance I got. Now that I live up here, I’ve spent lots of my free time this summer driving back down to these lands of huge fields and big red barns.

Is it true that we all return to our roots, at least somehow? I really haven’t minded these trips (inspired by differing degrees of family obligation), though. I enjoy seeing a sturdy old barn or a well-designed farm yard (do places ever strike you as perfect, seen from the road?). I treasure family connections, even if we don’t always see eye-to-eye politically. I’m a history buff and have a perhaps surprising interest in genealogy (isn’t that the realm of older people?). But gosh-barn-it, why can’t more of the relatives live in someplace new like Alaska or Utah or even Missouri, for field-sakes??

Sigh….I love to travel, and the opportunity is fairly rare these days. We’ve recently been visiting places I once knew; now I’m yearning to either enjoy the place I know NOW, or explore a completely new place. Now we’re planning another trip, once again way back down to a place I used to live near. But the people behind the visit are well worth the drive, so I’m back to exploring the land of barns…Wish us barn-voyage!