Tripping Down Memory Lane

Today I'm aching for the Grand Road Trips of mine and Darin's past. The big sprawling ones took place 2002, 2005, and 2007. Today I'm dreaming of the cross-country frolics of two springtime months in 2007.

The defining features of that particular trip seem to be:

1. used bookstores

2. trying out weird regional candies

3. finding stray cats to pet

4. quirky museums

5. Polaroids

6. Native American sites

this photo has the perfect road trip feeling. inside our living quarters:

I've been scanning in pages of the journal I kept on that trip. Here are some samples:

We traveled this beautiful road called the Talimena Scenic Byway through the Ouachita Mountains.

on into the south where I was awestruck by all the sad old broken-down abandoned buildings.

Plus, we drove through the mississippi delta towns on a sunday, so everything was closed in honor of the sabbath we supposed. people all in white congregating round the shabby little peaked roof churches, or waving from their crumbly front porches. it was lovely.

for some reason, this next one is my favorite page from the whole notebook. i am obviously super nostalgic, and this one brings back the exact memory of that moment and place most palpably.

new orleans was recovering from Katrina.

we fell in love with charleston: pirates and mermaids and blossoms and mansions and palmettos.

oh, and of course BOOKS.

it was the legacy of slavery that truly haunted the Southern towns we visited. ghosts of old plantations, fields, oaks, looms, wells, wildflowers, flagpoles, quilts, wooden roads all ghostly and sad and powerful and triumphant. it is crazy to me to think of that massive dark history of our country.

hipster towns are fun.

you know you're gonna find good coffee, good beer, good books, and good shows.

camping would be a relief from sleeping in the van.

we'd get showers, stretch out, unpack a little, and darin could play guitar, and we could really cook.

this was at First Landing State Park in Virginia.

we happened to be there for the 400 year anniversary celebration of English Settlement at Jamestowne. Apparently the Queen was there too.

(in our minds, sort of a bittersweet celebration, what with all the decimation that followed.)

Richmond was one of my favorite cities. It had the best bookstores and we were in love with the 821 cafe where we had the best vegetarian breakfast food!

plus, i loved when darin would write in the notebook, much more rare and entertaining.

places like tennessee and kentucky are maybe the greenest places i can imagine.

not too interested in the derby though, although i liked looking at all the fashionable ladies, and again, the queen of england was there, it seemed she was trailing us!

met up with our traveling companions, joey and addie, in chicago.

tons of fun would ensue.

my favorite author, Louise Erdrich, owns this amazing bookstore in Minneapolis, which was my other most favorite city of the trip.

i could go on and on.

i honestly feel like i could live on the road forever, discovering new towns and quirky places and meeting people and buying old books and finding out secrets and feeling haunted and writing down the best places to get a shower, use clean bathrooms, and hang out.

anyone else got the travel bug bad?