Everywhere, America

If you have ever driven on the interstate for an extended roadtrip, you will experience what a friend of ours refers to as "Everywhere, America."  Everywhere, America is that phenomenon you experience when you exit the freeway at any major development and find that it is exactly the same as the last exit you stopped at 12 hours ago, or 36 hours ago, or 72 hours ago.  It can be a little haunting and is certainly disorienting.  Home Depot on the right, McDonalds on the left, Walmart up the block, and Starbucks tucked into the strip mall next to the Radio Shack.  Deja vu and vertigo can set in simultaneously.  Those particularly adverse to consumerism may feel nausea. 

I experienced Everywhere, America on our last roadtrip.  I realized in my state of disorientation that the only thing that really distinguishes a place anymore is the landscape.  The rocks, the rivers, the sand, the mountains, and the trees.  And in order to see the landscape, you have to take the road less traveled, past the silos and the cows, on the gravel and the dirt, towards the ocean near the tracks.  In honor of Mr. Frost, and all wanderlust souls out there, we'll be taking a few more rights into the unchartered territory of smallville.