Look out the window!

My girls are the ones who now insist that we go to Indiana for the summer.  They don't care that we have to negotiate the entire state from top to bottom.  That isn't their concern.  They are kids and they know that if we end up in Indiana it will all be taken care of and they will see everyone they want to see.  For me, the logistics of getting from point A to point B and then to point C is complicated.  Either way it is a lot of driving through the Indiana countryside, which as the years pass, has been a delight for me.  And has turned me into my parents.

"Look at those clouds!  What a gorgeous day for driving.  Are you looking?  Girls!  Girls, are you looking?  Put down your phones and just look at this countryside."

When I was seven years old my grandparents, my cousin, my mother and I drove out west in my mother's station wagon.  Back then kids rode in the very back on top of mattresses that parents made or fixed to fit the wagon, and there were no seats to sit in.  We could sit with our backs against the seat in front of us staring out the back window or we could lie down.  There were no seat belts to restrain us so we had full range of motion to beat each other up interact with one another; play cards, color, etc.  I only have a few memories of that trip out west, but the one memory that my cousin has is my mother constantly telling us to enjoy the view.

"Put down those Barbies and look out the window at the scenery!"

Whenever we would travel with my father, even if it meant going to the store, he would comment on the view, the weather, and the people outside our car.  He would wave at people and act as if he knew them, calling them by a name he would make up.  This was always funny to me and would usually cause me to raise my head from a book or whatever else I might be looking down at.  If that didn't work he would stop the car, or slow down, and always use that phrase from the parents' handbook.

"Look at that sunset.  Do you see it? Just take a look at that!  God dammit, put down that (insert whatever was in our hands) and look out the window!"

As we drove from Florida to Indiana and from one end of Indiana to the other this summer I was always looking out the window.  When I wasn't driving, and sometimes when I was, I took pictures as quickly as I could to preserve the beauty.  I'm so fascinated at the differences in each state from the palm trees in Florida, to the mountains in Tennessee, to horse country in Kentucky, and the farmlands of Indiana.

"Girls, look at those mountains!  Isn't that a beautiful sight?  Girls, are you even looking?  How often are you going to see mountains?  Look out the window!"

I understood them.  I was once a kid.  A kid who had no interest other then what she was doing at that moment.  That scenery stuff?  I would glance at it and wonder what in the world all the excitement was about.  We were in a car for heaven's sake!  A car that we had been in for HOURS and seriously ? all I cared about was stopping at our destination.  But once we reached that destination?  Once we reached the end of the car ride I did see what the fuss was all about.  I saw views that I had never seen before in the state I resided in.  I saw colors I didn't know existed outside a crayon box.  I saw history so close I could touch it.

 

It wasn't until I looked through my girl's photos on their phones at the end of this trip that I remembered that part of my youth; the part where I did look up and see the view.  I have great memories of the beauty of the grand canyon, the geysers, the bears in Yellowstone Park, Canada, the mountains, the beaches, etc.  While in our stories of our youth it is always the oh, my parents! part of our past that we like to tell, but the truth is that we did listen.  

Above 3 pictures taken by Madison

 Looking at the pictures that my girls photographed, I realized that they too looked out the window.