Interstate 70, mile marker 73. About halfway between Effingham and Vandalia, IL. Westbound.
I was hoping to take Wombat photo #24 a bit further west down this same stretch of road, but three months have passed and I?m still just ricocheting about the Midwest. I never feel quite as lucid as I do pushing 80 across the interstate with the windows down, greasing the wheels of my imagination, the vibration of the road sifting free the dust of dead thoughts that have accumulated between my neural synapses, and the wind creating a vacuum to suck them out the window. So here I am cutting through the heartland on a 250+ mile stretch of road I could drive in my sleep, left hand on the steering wheel, right, pen in hand -
Glance Rearview.
Glance Front Window.
Jot down thought.
Glance Speedometer.
Glance Rearview.
Glance Front Window.
Jot down thought.
Glance Cop.
Glance Speedometer.
?
(In case you would like to attempt such a feat, I recommend felt-tipped or uni-ball pens.)
Prairie bleeds into farmland bleeds into forest bleeds into stagnant swamp foaming neon green sludge bleeds into the rolling hills of a garbage dump bleeds into city bleeds into urban sprawl bleeds into farmland bleeds into prairie. The world becomes your own moving diorama. Or one of those *movies* you made as a kid with a roll of paper, a shoe-box with a rectangular viewing hole cut out, and two pencils for spindles.
Wombat photo #24 is scene 73.
...now enroute to Fort Lupton, CO.
A hundredth of a second here, a hundredth of a second there--even if you put them all
end to end, they still only add up to one, two, perhaps three seconds, snatched from eternity. - Robert Doisneau
