Chasing My Roots Along The Backroads

I took some time out last week for a working retreat of sorts with my ride or die travel buddy, Ravae Lewis. We have been through a lot together and we have put the miles in, too. (That's not to say we are high mileage. That's not the case, at all.)

We have added up mileage in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania. We were politely escorted to the boundaries of a reservation during the pandemic and followed around by a stranger in an old cemetery just last week.

She nearly killed me on the side of the road at a fruit stand. (I was in dire need of a bathroom while she listened to some boyfriend's life story.) We have endured a haunted cabin on the battlefield's edge near Gettysburg and I have flagged down a Schwann's Truck in South Dakota. (It was during the pandemic and I was tired of boiled eggs, snack mix and cookies. I needed some real food. He couldn't sell it to me. So we had to follow him to a gas station and beg the owner to buy it from him and then sell it to me. I felt like I was negotiating something illicit. I just wanted some chicken and a hamburger.)

She was chased by a wandering buffalo in the Badlands on a trip to the woods. An older gentleman called me out in a Civil War quilt shop in Pennsylvania and told me he had been to Heaven and he knew I had, as well. "Tell me about it," he quipped as I stuttered. This was right after my ventilator episode and I hadn't told many people about the whole Heavenly experience in the fear that they would think I was crazy.

We have looked for Elvis in Memphis and fell in love with Jon Arthur's saltwater pool oasis in the Mississippi Delta. We have had spa days, swim days and near altercations with wannabe bikers. We have hiked in all seasons, sipped wine and watched late night crime shows, too.

We have played Scrabble and shared stories. We have basked in the silence when one or the other didn't feel well and needed some space. We had some creme brulee to die for last week at The Old Bank in downtown Russellville. If you go there, I will pay you to bring me one home.

We have cooked for one another, too. Her specialties are soups and biscuits. Mine might be brown beans and cornbread. I can also do a mean blueberry muffin. We have thrifted and gifted, laughed and cried and even took an art class last week, too.

We are both over thinkers and hard workers. We love our friends and family to no end. We love each other, too; even though she broke my heart a little when she moved away.

She gets excited about lizards, butterflies, turtles and groundhogs. I like wildflowers, junk and the sounds of crickets and cicadas at night. 

This week's column is about yet another one of our adventures on the backroads. I am hoping for more as All Roads Lead Home.