Last fall as we headed northeast on the long ride up to Nova Scotia, the notion of Back East dawned on me when we got to Dayton to visit our friends, the Curtoys. Nope, the two halves of the region east of the Mississippi have always been segregated, so to speak, north and south as they lie, still eyeing each other with suspicion. Although my family came out of the Deep South, I think of it now mostly in association with Joseph Conrad. But, I don’t include those states south of the Mason-Dixon Line when I think of Back East. I distinctly remember the thin little copy of Strunk and White I had in high school, but I don’t remember reading it.ĭahna and I seldom went east except when driving through the Deep South to visit relatives. I’m really not sure whether or not to capitalize a lot of stuff, and that goes for where to put a lot of my commas too. I don’t know if I should capitalize the E and W, but I think of them now as specific places rather than mere directions, so I’m giving them proper names. Simple things such as old sayings like “Back East” and “Out West” seem a good place to start. Right now, I’m thinking about how a westerner like me might consider how the two land halves of America, split vertically, feel different when traveling through them. west, oceans are more alike than continents. Record flooding again and again because we now live on a different planet than we think we do. They really unloaded when they spun over the Rockies into the thick Gulf moisture awaiting in the Plains thanks to the Atlantic’s southeasterly trades. You no doubt remember the rain regardless of where you live.Īn El Niño-inspired, tightly-packed succession of Pacific lows marched ashore spritzing us good as we traveled up the Sierras. We hightailed it back to Texas, sans trailer, in the interim in order to save Patty’s sanity and begin hacking back the jungle that spread over the place thanks to the incredible wet spring. It doesn’t exactly feel like we’re “home” either…sort of a limbo state of being.įor those of you too bored to keep up with our exciting new strategy of long-distance travel, we left our camper in storage in Missoula at the end of the spring portion of the big western loop to be followed in August by the return-home Fall portion. It’s odd because we’re actually halfway through our big RV trip out west but, obviously, we’re not traveling. It seems odd sitting here at home in Comanche in the wallowed out cushion of my couch looking across the room at Dahna on her own couch.
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