Where To Now?

cross-posted on my Quest blog On Monday, my parents, pups, and I set out on a new adventure. After the closing on my house, we hit the road for a series of days driving from Texas to upstate New York. Our nights' stays would be at places I found on  Airbnb  in Little Rock, near Louisville, and near Erie. When I told people I was moving to New York, most were immediately concerned that winter would be unbearable. Keeping in mind that millions of people live further north than Texas, I was sure I'd survive somehow. One individual, however, responded with, "New York is so beautiful. The green there is the greenest green." I've been pondering green ever since. As we drove through East Texas, I noticed how muted the greens were. Some mostly yellow from the summer heat... some sage from the dust... some a muted evergreen when there were stands of trees. In Arkansas, the green got cleaner. There was less dust, less yellow. Moving through Tennessee and into Kentucky...

Today was our final day with a family history stop, which was to be in Pulaski, TN. We left Kimball first thing this morning and were on our way. Since we were going to an area that isn't serviced by Interstates, we enjoyed a calm, traffic-free drive through the Tennessee countryside. We stopped at a place called the Swiss Pantry with the intent of finding cheese curds, which we didn't find. What we DID find was a "vendor appreciation day" underway... where all of their vendors who grow and raise and sell their farm-fresh produce and meat were set up outside the store with samples! We tasted cheese grits (they had made the grits), sausage balls, chicken, popcorn, fudge... yeah, it was a fortuitous stop. I had a nice conversation with a young single mom who had moved to the area from Fort Worth two years ago and was enjoying a slower pace of life... and learning to raise sheep alongside her 11 year old daughter! Back on the road, we continued to marvel at how...