Is There Any Place Like Home?

Spouse and I are recovering from a road trip.  Sunday before last we left from our home near Johnson City, New York and set out for Northwest Arkansas.  We returned late yesterday. 

Here are some photos that, I hope, show the size and beauty of our country.  This trip (one way) was over 1400 miles, not including detours.  And, we didn't even get halfway across the United States.

In Western New York, entering the Oneida Nation territory.  This is a sovereign tribe, one of many, inside the borders of our country.  (Yes, "Ohio" is a Native American word meaning "great river").

A plaque at a nearby rest area tells one of their stories.

Dayton,Ohio, home of aviation.

An Indiana farm, growing corn.

An Illinois cornfield.

Cabin (built 1881) of Moses Carver, a Missouri farmer.  When slavery was legal, Moses Carver owned a young baby born in January of 1864.  This sickly little boy grew up to be George Washington Carver, a scientist, botanist, inventor, and agricultural teacher - and this just begins to describe him. (yes, I will blog more about him one day.)

And Arkansas.  How can I describe Arkansas in a paragraph?  Perhaps by showing you this famous 1979 Ford 1/2 Ton pickup, owned by a man who survived a hardscrabble childhood growing up in the Depression to become one of the richest men in the world.  He's dead now, but he was quite alive and well when we lived in Arkansas back in the early 1980's.  His name was Sam Walton, and you might just have shopped in one of his stores.  They are called Wal-Mart.  His story, in many ways, was the story of Northwest Arkansas, and yes, I will share the story of Sam Walton with you one day, too.

So many stories and so little time to tell them.

But there is no place like home, and I knew that when I saw the mountains of Western New York again yesterday, and saw the goldenrod lighting up the hills in a blaze of yellow glory.

I hope you had a good week, too.