I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
On our trip up north last week, we first went west, across the Mississippi and into Iowa. What a sweet journey it was as we travelled on a scenic route through corn and soy fields, past vineyards, and into small towns.
Our first stop was a visitor center and rest stop just over the Illinois/Iowa border. We both agreed that it was one of the nicest and most interesting rest areas we have seen with attractive pavilions for picnicking, paths for dog and people walking, and this interesting sculpture, which looked like silos and marked the many forms of agriculture in Iowa. Can you find the pig in among the soybean and ear of corn?
We spent the afternoon in Williamsburg, where Tom’s father grew up, and that is the subject of a blog of its own. After walking about and even picking up a few pieces of family history, we angled northeast and through some of the prettiest pieces of America you can imagine.
Cattle and corn, church steeples and farms dotted the rolling hills as the storm clouds gathered toward the west. We could see rain in the distance and long lines of rain miles away. At one point, the rain reached us, with the sun shining in the east. I remarked that there had to be a rainbow out there somewhere, and there was, just as we reached the outskirts of Strawberry Point.
Doesn’t everyone get out of their car, rain falling with the sun shining, and start clicking pictures of a double rainbow with perfect arcs? Did I mention we stopped in the parking lot of a funeral home? That’s us. Death defying travel.
A few miles later, the rain abated, and we were treated to this magnificent sunset.
It was dark and we were tired by the time we reached our motel. We had to wait until dawn to see the Mighty Mississippi flowing just outside our window.
We drove through Iowa in search of family roots. We went to Minnesota to spend some time with a growing family branch. What we found along the way was family all around us. In the rolling hills and valleys. In the rainbows and the sunsets. It really does make a difference when we take the road less traveled.
Thanks, Tom, for the rainbows and sunsets!
