Landscape: From Road and Sky

It’s good to be back in motion. Last week, I spent two days driving from Vail, Colorado to Louisville, Kentucky, where I visited my folks, stashed my car, and packed two bags full of summer gear. Then, hopped on a plane from Louisville to Philly to Frankfurt to Geneva. A shuttle to Chamonix, France and here I am, base-camping in a little studio apartment until mid-September.

I find the process of getting somewhere to be incredibly inspiring, and perhaps the best sights along the way to my destination were the wind generators I spotted in Kansas. I hadn’t driven along I-70 through Kansas in a few years, and these have cropped up sometime between then and now near Topeka. I think they look like monolithic flowers with petals swaying in the wind:

I pulled over on the road to watch them in the evening light…loving the way that they’re turning all out of sync and making a low gurgling-wooshing sound as they turn.

Later the next eve, I had a serendipitous encounter with one of my best friends who lives in Michigan. I called her from the road, and as it turned out, she was about 20 minutes away from me, also on the road, on the way to visit her parents who live in Henderson, Kentucky. We met up in Henderson for a downtown jazz festival, some carnival food, and a beautiful evening on the banks of the Ohio River before I continued on to Louisville.

After a few days of catching up with Louisville family and friends, I boarded the plane for an epic flight to Geneva:

All went well until my arrival in Frankfurt, Germany. The security people there happened to think that the climbing gear in my carry-on baggage could be used to maim or kill, so they tried to make me check it, and I missed my flight. No worries, though…I was able to catch the next one and arrived in Chamonix later that night.