Blue Highways

"Blue Highways," 5 x 7 watercolor, 300 lb d'Arches cold press

Among the Clarks' favorite books is "Blue Highways," by William Least Heat Moon.

It is now more than 50 years old, but to anyone who loves travel, and especially travel on the backroads, this personal journey is Gospel. I once found an inscribed hard cover first edition, and one son is now the proud owner. 

Note to those who haven't read it. The old maps of America had the main roads in red and the others in blue. He circumnavigated the U.S. in a van writing of the people and places he met.

A sampling:

• “On the road, where change is continuous and visible, time is not; rather it is something the rider only infers. Time is not the traveler's fourth dimension - change is.”
• "A true journey, no matter how long the travel takes, has no end."
• "Life doesn't happen on the interstates. It's against the law."

Thus this little watercolor from yesterday, as the urge to travel deepens.