Tag Archives: Travel

Back Roads

By Terry C. Misfeldt

Interstate highways facilitate quick travel from one location to another. Speed limits let you drive at more than a minute per mile. Scenery flashes by…just like the vehicles in a bigger hurry than you…or the slower ones in the right lane. The question: Do you get to enjoy the trip and the life you pass by?

For a pleasant change, take the back roads. The ones where the speed limit is fifty-five miles an hour. Now, if you’re going to do this, don’t be in a hurry. Take your time. Observe what’s going on around you. The farmer baling hay in his field. The vendor selling her sweet corn on the side of the road. A bald eagle soaring overhead…just remember to keep your eyes on the road, too.

Stop at the Amish general store. Visit the cemetery on a hill, even if none of your relatives reside there. Check out the country church and talk with the local residents. Enjoy a meal at the diner on main street. Watch for wildlife scattering from the swamp along the two-lane road. Slow down for cyclists or a Mennonite horse-drawn buggy. Spend some time in the small town and ingest the local culture.

Pull off that back road and watch the water flow down the river. Take a walk on a woodland trail and relish the peaceful solitude. Remember to leave it better than you found it. No one wants to pick up your trash. Listen to the birds. Spend some time observing the cows grazing in the meadow. Breathe deep the fresh country air and don’t be alarmed. Cows need to poop, too. I call it “Dairy-Air” for derriere.

Life is good on America’s back roads. Yes, people live there because they want to enjoy what you see on a random trip every day. Trees in full autumnal color. Snow drifts. The smell of fresh mowed alfalfa (hay). Sunsets over the lake. Chirping birds. Life. And, yes, it’s okay to slow down once in a while and enjoy what we have in the United States.

Keeping a Journal

By Terry C. Misfeldt

When we were younger it was thought of as keeping a diary. As we have gotten older, that diary is now considered a journal. With age, keeping a journal is one of the best ways to keep track of the special occasions and life moments you experience.

Like my grandmother who started her journal when she was 10 years old and kept it up until 10 days before her passing, i have consciously kept a journal for most of my life. The exception was 2019 when I chose to intentionally skip keeping track of minutiae and just live my life!

The Corona virus pandemic of 2020 has proven to be an excellent reason for keeping a journal. The panic of being close to someone who might be infected. The anxiety of being quarantined. Waiting for test results. Listening to information and wondering whether it is accurate or manufactured. Doubt. Emotions provide insight to what you have gone through it you have shared them in a journal.

You are not obligated to share your journal with anyone. It is your personal property. It can also be a legacy to your loved ones when you leave this existence for the other side. I am fortunate to have some of my grandmother’s journals and the secrets they have divulged about growing up in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Being able to decode her symbols, I was able to determine when my father was conceived.

My fifth grandchild recently joined our family and, in my journal, I have shared my emotions and feelings about my third grandson. Being able to go back and review dates and events enables me to reminisce about his birth when I am older and grayer with a mind less likely to remember details that are fresh now.

If you travel, journal about it. A friend of mine who has been a professional photographer during his entire career has traveled extensively. When he shared images with me about his trips, i encouraged him to create journal entries and share them with his followers. It created a permanent memory of his exploits for himself, his family, and those of us who have always admired his work.

If you consider yourself a writer and wonder what to write, journal. Keeping a journal provides inspiration for that great American novel.

Travel for Inspiration

By L.E. Aronis

I recently bought a t-shirt that reads “Love Where You Are,” which is completely the opposite of my usual life-view. I’ve lived in Wisconsin all my life, and while there are many things I love about the state, there are increasingly more and more things I’m growing to dislike each year. I love the natural beauty and friendliness of most people, but the long winters have me longing for a more temperate climate.

I have been to several different countries, including Canada, Israel, Ireland, and Great Britain, as well as Puerto Rico, which is an American territory but feels like a different country. I’ve flown on many planes and taken a passenger train between Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland. I’ve taken a ferry from Wales to Ireland, spent a whole week exploring the amazing city of Edinburgh by city bus, and my two feet. I’ve spent way too much money to rent a car, driving along the Jurassic Coast of Southern Dorset, England, as well as County Cork, Ireland. I’ve harvested grapes in a vineyard for a winery in Israel and tasted the wine that those before me worked so hard to help produce.

I’ve taken chances and not always been very wise in my decisions when it comes to travel, but it’s all worked out, and I’ve learned quite a lot from it. Those experiences and the places I’ve traveled to have enriched my writing, as well as my life. I can draw on so many amazing things in order to create characters and situations that I’d never have thought of if I’d stayed put in Wisconsin. I’ve written about people living in large manor homes in Edinburgh, Amazing townhomes in London, beach houses near the sea in Dorset, as well as a normal, middle-income home in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Through travel, I’ve become a better writer and I think, a better person who sees things in a different, less narrow way. If you want variety and something different to write about, I’d recommend travel; you never know the things you’ll come up with, having gleaned inspiration through the people you’ll meet and places you’ll see.