Tall Trees Make My Heart Sing...
I grew up in Michigan, in the Detroit suburbs. Our vacations every year were spent at Crystal Lake, in the northwestern part of the lower peninsula. The house we rented was set back away from the road surrounded by trees. I loved going there.
Then, when I was 12, we moved to southern Oklahoma. Ardmore is right on what I refer to as the tree line - go east and there are trees, go west, and there's just mesquite. But even where there were trees, they weren't the towering giants I had walked through as a kid.
College in Norman (Boomer Sooner), and 5 years in San Antonio kept me on the tree line. Then we moved to Washington DC. I remember one day I was driving alone from the DC area out to Annapolis and was enchanted by the trees. The day was a good one all round, but the most memorable part was the intense emotional reaction I had to the forest I was driving through - a jumble of feelings that even now I can't completely sort out, but exhilaration comes close to describing how I felt.
I've had that feeling a couple more times, a vacation in Colorado driving down an insanely narrow and curving "highway", visiting a friend in East Texas, and most recently during a combined business trip/vacation to the Seattle area.
I guess what crystallized all this is my brain was dong a little internet quiz the other day, where you pick one picture out of several available for a particular theme. The had several landscape pictures, and I chose one with woods in it. (You can see the quiz results here) After you've made all your choices, they ask you to add captions to the pictures you've chosen. I had to think about most of them, but for the one with the woods, the caption came whole into my mind "Tall trees make my heart sing".
I've been thinking about that, and have come to realize that I want to spend more time in and around trees. I don't envision leaving Amarillo, at least not until I'm ready to retire, and hope that is many years in the future. I am happy here, and a month ago, the thought of leaving wouldn't ever have crossed my mind. But I'm thinking that maybe I should look for someplace in New Mexico or Colorado to get a little land and set up a trailer to spend time in on weekends. I don't know if this is feasible, or even know if there are wooded areas that would be a reasonable weekend commute. But it's exciting just to envision, and think of planning trips to explore around a bit. Or maybe it's just a pipe dream that I'll keep inside for a while.
Time will tell...
Then, when I was 12, we moved to southern Oklahoma. Ardmore is right on what I refer to as the tree line - go east and there are trees, go west, and there's just mesquite. But even where there were trees, they weren't the towering giants I had walked through as a kid.
College in Norman (Boomer Sooner), and 5 years in San Antonio kept me on the tree line. Then we moved to Washington DC. I remember one day I was driving alone from the DC area out to Annapolis and was enchanted by the trees. The day was a good one all round, but the most memorable part was the intense emotional reaction I had to the forest I was driving through - a jumble of feelings that even now I can't completely sort out, but exhilaration comes close to describing how I felt.
I've had that feeling a couple more times, a vacation in Colorado driving down an insanely narrow and curving "highway", visiting a friend in East Texas, and most recently during a combined business trip/vacation to the Seattle area.
I guess what crystallized all this is my brain was dong a little internet quiz the other day, where you pick one picture out of several available for a particular theme. The had several landscape pictures, and I chose one with woods in it. (You can see the quiz results here) After you've made all your choices, they ask you to add captions to the pictures you've chosen. I had to think about most of them, but for the one with the woods, the caption came whole into my mind "Tall trees make my heart sing".
I've been thinking about that, and have come to realize that I want to spend more time in and around trees. I don't envision leaving Amarillo, at least not until I'm ready to retire, and hope that is many years in the future. I am happy here, and a month ago, the thought of leaving wouldn't ever have crossed my mind. But I'm thinking that maybe I should look for someplace in New Mexico or Colorado to get a little land and set up a trailer to spend time in on weekends. I don't know if this is feasible, or even know if there are wooded areas that would be a reasonable weekend commute. But it's exciting just to envision, and think of planning trips to explore around a bit. Or maybe it's just a pipe dream that I'll keep inside for a while.
Time will tell...