I have to keep reminding myself that the advantage of the road trip is that nothing’s set in stone. Sure, we do have to be in Salt Lake for conference weekend, but if we fall behind a few hours here or there, it’s not going to make that much of a difference. We really don’t have anywhere we need to be.
I asked the waitress last night, “Where am I?”
She said, “You mean the restaurant?”
“No,” I replied. “This place? Where is the restaurant located?
She paused, which I didn’t take as a good sign, and finally said, “I guess some people would say you’re in Williamsville.”
I didn’t ask what other people would call the place. As we drive across the country, so many of the places we pass through feel like in-between spots. Obviously, they’re homes and destinations for some, I just don’t know who those people are.
There’s a stark beauty to the early spring. Without the leaves, you get a greater sense of the land and its shape. So often, we see images of the Sacred Grove filled with trees laden with greenery, but I think we may have gotten a better sense of what things really looked like that morning Jospeh Smith went out to pray that early spring morning. It was cold and wet and rainy as walked through the Joseph Smith farm, but Liam said as we were leaving the Hill Cummorah, “It’s a real place now.” That’s why we travel—to make the world more real, to make the people who lived before us more tangible.
We’ve been to two Target stores in two days now. It’s hard to describe how eerily comforting that store can be after five years of Zeller’s and Wal-Mart. The spacious aisles, the stocked shelves, and the pleasant demeanor of the employees, it feels like coming home. Today, Julie bought a canvas bag with the store’s logo stitched on it. It may just be the only souvenir she buys on this trip.
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