My Mind Dances

Our first day “on the road again” went well.  We traveled south on I-95.  Because Odysseus carries propane we have to avoid the harbor tunnel.  We detoured from I-95 to the inner loop (695) south and crossed the Chesapeake Bay via the Key Bridge.  How many times have we traveled this way?  Yet each time I drive this familiar route, new thoughts dance around in my mind, like: “I wonder what it must have been like for Francis Scott Key (this bridge I’m crossing is named for him) to be at Fort McHenry on that morning back in 1814 when he saw “that star-bangled banner” still waving “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”  I wonder, too, if he ever had any inkling that his penned words would become our national anthem?  

On down the highway a  little way and we pass by Andrews Air Force Base where once I was assigned and where now we are forced to drive 75 mph on what I have always dubbed the “Capital Speedway” (I-295).   We cross the Potomac River into Alexandria, Virginia, and I remember a day spent there many years ago with my artist friend, Bill Renzulli, as he photographed the architecture of the city for future paintings.  The sun is shining.  What a glorious day to be on the road again!

Southward we go on I-95.  We pass by the sign pointing to Manassas and I think of that time  of conflict so long ago when our nation was divided politically even more so than it is today.  I see the sign for  Quantico and I quietly hum the Marine Hymn:  “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”   Southward we go, bypassing Richmond, and as we pass it by,  I remember that this city, so close to our National Capital, was once the capital of the Confederacy.  Continuing our drive south on I-95 we pass through Petersburg, Virginia, where nine months of trench warfare were conducted by Union forces during the 1864-1865 (“Siege of Petersburg”)—in order to gain control over the town which was essential to Union plans to capture Richmond.

“The real voyage of discovery,” writes Marcel Proust, “consists not of seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  I’ve traveled this way many times before, but each new time traveling these highways my mind dances and I find I have new eyes to see what has never been seen before.

Like my grandchildren--I am having fun!
It was 66 degrees in NC yesterday!