The Traveling Time Machine

I have been in Maine a week, waiting the arrival of grandchild #3, and although at times it feels like a scene from “Waiting for Godot”, (Beckett’s existential play where two people wait on stage for someone that never comes), it has been grand to watch spring replay itself here.  Here in northern Maine, at the end of May, the lilacs are in full, glorious, sweet- smelling bloom.  The black cherries are just putting out there white wands of flowers and the crab apple trees have left carpets of pink on the sidewalks after the rain.

 Nesting is in progress with a robin choosing an easy-to-spot nesting site in a lilac tree by the garage.  She “perp, perp, perped” at my grandson and I as we happened by, giving her location away, and now we have a way to keep track of her progress.  No yammering fledglings yet so we must still be in incubation mode.  Rather like my daughter now that I think of it, still in incubation mode.

But when I left Texas it was, of course, summer; it is almost always summer in Texas.  The   wildflowers weren’t entirely gone though and the first day of travel had the road lined with the reds, yellows, and orange of Indian blanket and coreopsis which gave way in Eastern Texas to the all white of the largest Queen Anne’s Laces I have ever seen. Everything’s bigger in Texas.  And here I thought the Queen was absent from the TX scene, but not here in the panhandle; here she rules the highways, not in August as I am used to, but in May.

Arkansas had its hedgerows covered in honeysuckle, which made me keep the windows rolled down and made the whole world smell like July to this New Englander.

  But still it was mid- May.  And who knew they grew rice in Arkansas?  Perhaps everyone but me.  Fields full of twisting dirt mounds with sluiceways cut through them; it looked like something you would see on the side of a U-Haul.  “See the mysterious snake mounds of Arkansas”.  Rice fields, or paddies not yet planted and, had the highway not been backed up for about 5 miles with some unknown traffic problem, I probably wouldn’t have gotten off and seen them. Definitely, this is the plus side of traffic.  Often the “real state” is just a few miles away from the uniform state you see from an Interstate.

Tennessee was more than the “greenest state in the land of the free”.  Both the Black Locust and the Black Cherry were in bloom with their hanging white clusters of flowers so the roadsides were a blend of white and green.   Plus that purple Paulownia was in bloom, a tree from China, an escapee from suburban yards looking for color and a fast growing shade tree. 

  In Virginia, it was time to roll down the windows again for the Russian Olive perfumed the air.   Another invasive that surely has taken over the roadsides but the least they can do is bring something to the table, and the Russian Olive brings spring perfume. 

I interrupted all seasons to be back in “Little Italy” in Baltimore with my daughter.  The aromas of Italian kitchens mark each season here.  Ah, to wake up to garlic and sauces and baking bread as the restaurants gear up each morning, gets you out of bed and thinking of things grander than cereal to eat.  And yeah, the twitter of chimney swifts has returned to this enclave completing the image of a poor mans trip to Rome.

But at the moment, I am hearing the twitter, not of birds but of a grandson already present and wanting to get up.  I know this chronicling of what was blooming where, isn’t edge of your seat stuff, but so often the point of my writing is just to get it down as my own memory, for memory is already getting to be a fleeting thing.  Bear with me then, personal chronicles will continue for awhile.

Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow

In Texas, praying for rain is a national pastime or, in this case, should I say, a state pastime.  When it does come I get as excited as I did for snowstorms on the Cape.  Yay, plants that won’t need watering for a while but, when I am traveling, not so much.  And yet it seems to be a recurring theme with me, that whenever I launch off for some long distance adventure, I seem to take a major weather system along with me.  And this trip has been no different.

I am heading to Maine, for the birth of grandchild #3, due on Memorial Day.  How festive and how perfect for this New Englander to have the great fortune of being called in for Nona-duty in the month of May.  Could there be a more beautiful time to drive through this verdant country when everything is in bloom and the greens are at their greenest?  No, and I have been treated to the lush views of waist high grass, an abundance of flowers and crops that are up and looking extremely healthy.  But I also have also been closer than I would want to be to the other harbinger of spring, tornadoes. 

Leaving my daughters house in Killeen before dawn, the radio crackled with news of “first responders” and “devastation” and “watches for the following counties….”.  And here is a serious pet peeve of mine, could they just once mention town names for we travelers who haven’t memorized the counties of the state we are passing through?  Or just give us a hint, north Texas or western Arkansas or something a little more descriptive.   Not knowing if I was in the county they were talking about but having a black, black sky at my back with lightning shooting out of it, helped me keep my pedal to the metal trying to stay ahead of it.  No dice though, each day, this storm has caught up with me while I slept and watching the weather forecast for VA today I see, what a surprise, “thunderstorms, rain, heavy at times”. Of course. 

However, I could look at another way.  I hate the heat, I have a “might work, might not work”, air conditioner in the car, but with all these storms I have been kept cool.  Cool to the point of putting on a jacket at times, a jacket I thought I wouldn’t need until I reached Maine.  While meanwhile, back in Texas they are breaking records for heat. My husband claimed it was 105 in San Antonio, I think it had been 70 the day I left.  So, I won’t complain about the rain.

And the other plus side is, when you go to take a gander at some famous spot, you just might have it to yourself if it is pouring; just me and the spirits of the prehistoric Indians at the Toltec Indian Mounds outside of Little Rock.  They are kind enough to lend out umbrellas but after mine turned inside out for the third time, I thought I just might as well get wet.  It was a warm gentle rain and the swallows were swooping over the open field searching for sodden bugs and when I got my sandals covered with mud there were plenty of puddles to wash them off in.

It poured so hard in Nashville where I had stopped to see, not the honky-tonk bars, 

 but Vanderbilt, that I decided spending an hour or so in Starbucks seemed a better idea.  Lovely.  Just the break I needed from looking at the world through swishing wipers. 

 And last night, I decided against one motel, for it was on the top of a hill and just as I pulled in, a bolt of lightning came down so close that I thought I might see this place go up in flames. I quickly turned the car around and found a better choice on lower ground. 

Now, as I write this, the Weather Channel is on and the map is dotted with bright red and orange splotches.  The poor folks of Kansas and the entire Midwest look like they need to seek shelter. 

 But my route?  That would be, you guessed it, rain and thunderstorms.  Still I see temps in the 70’s while Texas goes for more record highs.  So, again, I won’t complain. For that matter, if I want to look at this biblically, I could take the role of the Israelites being led by the Shekinah glory, a pillar of cloud that kept them cool by day. 

My destination today, Baltimore and my youngest daughters lovely apartment in Little Italy, where with some imagination I can pretend I am in Italy, right down to the ringing church bells and by this time of year, swifts swooping over chimney tops.  And rain did make the flowers grow but that is a story for another day.  Now, back on the road, singing to the tapping of the wipers. 

"The Glory of the Lord Shone Around About Them"

 I know I have mentioned in the past, that I have a hard time keeping track of the seasons in Texas, but I am not so confused as to be thinking it is Christmas.  However, on a ride north through the Hill Country to see my daughter last weekend, that was the verse that kept jumping to mind.  “The Glory of the Lord” was truly shining all around us.  For it is spring, and in the Hill Country of Texas that is synonymous with “glory” as flowers carpet the fields and the highways are a palette of color; blue, gold, purple, red, yellow, orange, pinks and on and on.  Glory.

We were stuck in a traffic jam outside of a town that was running a marathon and chose to give the runners/walkers full reign of the road and, what might have been pretty annoying, was a chance to get a good look and finally ID the flowers that were too hard to see clearly at 60mph.  But at 5 mph you can practically see them down to their pistils and stamens.  One tall, white, omnipresent flower was driving me crazy because it was EVERYWHERE yet no one seemed to know what it was called.  Yet the one place it wasn’t, was anywhere near my house, or at the nature center or somewhere I could see it at less than 60mph.  Finally, with the traffic jam I could hop out and get a better look and, Aha, it is called Prairie Bishop’s Weed.  Now I know, and can tell others if they ask, not that they are likely too, but all the same, it is just nice to know. 

And, just for fun, I will share with you the description in the book.  Remember, I am not bonafide botanist, just a curious naturalist, so the terms that they use in identifying these things always seem the most amazing mouthful to me.  Here is how part of the description reads,   “Its stems are striate.  The glabrous leaves are up to 2” long, and are three times pinnately divided into slender, threadlike filaments.  A few entire to pinnately divided linear bracts lie at the base of compound inflorescence.”   

Translation: Its stems have fine grooves along the ridges, the leaves don’t have hairs, and they have 3 pairs of opposite compound leaves, the leaves that are on the bottom of the flower are also compound and the flower itself is a collection of compound flowers.  Ok maybe it was easier to say their way but harder to get the picture if you are a novice.  Guess we all need to study our glossary more.

What also crossed my mind that day is how lucky I have been to have driven so many roads where the “Glory of God” indeed shone all around me.  Pick any back road in New England in the fall and it will take your breath away. 

 

  Drive the ever-twisting Rte 1 along the California coast where ocean and cliff, surf and soaring birds and, in the right season, a chance to see spouting whales, makes it nearly miraculous that you don’t go over a cliff yourself while looking. 

  My own beloved back-roads of Cape Cod are also full of “glory”, especially in June when roses climb through the trees like a bridal bower, or past salt marshes so green they seem the very definition of chlorophyll.

 

 We all have these images, tucked away, kept forever in some neuron bundle in our brain, to pull out when perhaps we are not in such a lovely place.  At least I hope we do.  And in a matter of weeks, I shall be hitting the highways again, driving to Maine in May for the birth of grandchild #3 and I know more glory scenes will be added.  And, it is a good bet; I will be sharing them with you.