While away...
(Written in my paper journal, on the way to Houston)
Outside of Dallas, south on 45, it is so green. Miles of green land and an occasional cow or goat. We pass churches with wooden playgrounds and small abandoned shacks that once were homes. Those houses tell stories and I'd love to go back and capture them in a photograph. I look up and see that bluebonnets are beginning to bloom alongside the highways. We are on our way to Fort Bend, just outside of Houston. Hardly any money in our pockets, but he has campaign work to do and the room is paid for. We just passed a small village of mobile homes - all white. I looked up to see the words, "Come back to God". There were white crosses strewn about the lawn. There is so much of Texas I have never seen, so much that is hidden and waiting to be discovered. I want to travel down these open roads and discover.
(Later)
We make a stop to eat. My eyes fall on a few people, but none are as striking to me as her: a little girl with white blonde pigtails is wearing a bright green shirt, a frilly white skirt, and green and white flip flops. She is the epitome of innocence as she prances around the adults, her little pigtails bobbing up and down and swaying in the wind. Bluegrass music plays in the background - a man in a top hat is playing the violin. He seems lonely, but the little girl keeps dancing, and surprising me, bends down to pick the purple flowers that grow alongside the road...
(On the way home)
We should have been in Dallas much sooner but we keep stopping. Stopping everywhere: at the world's largest statue of Sam Houston, to see the wildflowers growing in bunches alongside the highways, in Corsicana at the Russel Stover Candy Store (so much candy and a delicious caramel apple!), and then a confusing drive through Downtown Corsicana which resembled nothing more than a ghost town containing a few square buildings and five or six antique stores. The sun is beginning to set, and the sky is a brilliant blood orange color.
Outside of Dallas, south on 45, it is so green. Miles of green land and an occasional cow or goat. We pass churches with wooden playgrounds and small abandoned shacks that once were homes. Those houses tell stories and I'd love to go back and capture them in a photograph. I look up and see that bluebonnets are beginning to bloom alongside the highways. We are on our way to Fort Bend, just outside of Houston. Hardly any money in our pockets, but he has campaign work to do and the room is paid for. We just passed a small village of mobile homes - all white. I looked up to see the words, "Come back to God". There were white crosses strewn about the lawn. There is so much of Texas I have never seen, so much that is hidden and waiting to be discovered. I want to travel down these open roads and discover.
(Later)
We make a stop to eat. My eyes fall on a few people, but none are as striking to me as her: a little girl with white blonde pigtails is wearing a bright green shirt, a frilly white skirt, and green and white flip flops. She is the epitome of innocence as she prances around the adults, her little pigtails bobbing up and down and swaying in the wind. Bluegrass music plays in the background - a man in a top hat is playing the violin. He seems lonely, but the little girl keeps dancing, and surprising me, bends down to pick the purple flowers that grow alongside the road...
(On the way home)
We should have been in Dallas much sooner but we keep stopping. Stopping everywhere: at the world's largest statue of Sam Houston, to see the wildflowers growing in bunches alongside the highways, in Corsicana at the Russel Stover Candy Store (so much candy and a delicious caramel apple!), and then a confusing drive through Downtown Corsicana which resembled nothing more than a ghost town containing a few square buildings and five or six antique stores. The sun is beginning to set, and the sky is a brilliant blood orange color.