jet streams::great salt basin

I’ve been enjoying this three days/three quotes invitation from Woodland Gnome, especially in paring and sharing photographs with quotes from our 7 day drive to Arizona in April, which began in Virginia went through West Virginia, Kentucky, a corner of Tennessee for the crossing of the mighty muddy Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico to Tucson.  We made some numerous right turns, you turns, and lefties to get there as we had an atlas in hand and mapped ourselves as we travelled, despite having made a previous route.  The kids liked the mapping and the atlas and the changes in plans and we discovered that the roads we were driving were the Trail of Tears route, which eventually led us to the Sante Fe Trail along with lots of discussions about who’d been there before us, where did they come from, where we’d been and where we ought to go next.

These pictures are from Oklahoma, where we first saw the wind turbines:: giants dancing while generating power right beside oil and gas fields with cows on top of it all.  As you might imagine, this gave rise to many questions:: about power, electricity, resources, beauty, perspective, relativity, essence, people, farming, and much more.  There were so many teaching moments in Oklahoma, one of which was that beauty may very well reside in the eye of the beholder::what perspective would you be holding?

“The little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea,
Among the winds at play.” ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“It’s a good thing to have all the props
pulled out from under us occasionally.
It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet,
and what is sand.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle

“I dreamt we walked together along the shore.
We made satisfying small talk and laughed.
This morning I found sand in my shoe and
a seashell in my pocket.
Was I only dreaming?”~Maya Angelou

“The mind can go in a thousand directions,
but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.
With each step, the wind blows.
With each step, a flower blooms.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I hope you’ll visit Woodland Gnome’s garden, and should you choose to do so::look with a keen eye for something fine there in resides.

If you’d like to participate and leave me a comment indicating your interest, I’d be happy to pass on the invitation tomorrow:: unless you’re comfortable with simply joining 🙂