Wanderlust, Words and Views

Walt Whitman wrote of the "call of the open road", and I like to think that I know exactly what he was referring to.  Those landscapes that just keep unfurling ahead of you; that road ahead like a long stretched piece of gum that you had to look at but aren't done chewing just yet.
It's amazing to experience this by one's self, but remarkable to do so with a loved one.  With Bertha, there is interest and history in virtually everything, peppered with a genuine sense of intrigue.  This has to be where I inherited my own wunder/wander/wonder-lust...
"Antelope!"
"Look at that one cow in the water.  Don't you wonder what the other cows are saying?  He looks pleased as punch."
"Oh my God - look at that red - Buttes?  Canyon - mesa?  What do you call that, anyway?"
"Do you think that crop is beets?"
"You know, we had a windmill like that; it ran the pump for the well.  You don't see many of those anymore."
From time to time, the conversation wanes and slows, like a cloud shadow passing over the distant mesa; then radiates once again.  There are places where the words sometimes take corners, like boxers in a fight; particularly when certain political or religious ideas may emerge.  The sentences sort of square off of each other; and more often than not, decline to take the first punch.  Rather than point to our own interpretations of these ideas, we stick to the intrigue of the places in which we walk hand in hand, see eye to eye.  Sometimes, we acknowledge the differences with humor and then let them rest.  Like "Mom, I know you are NEVER going to like my hair.  And that's ok.  I've made peace with it."   For example.
Words, really, are a lot like landscape.  They roll, spontaneous yet eternal.  Sometimes you stop and think, and sometimes you just go and don't look back.   As much as we gravitate towards the "presets" of Red and Blue, Dem or Republican, White or Black, Evil or Good; those words are only a single post in a long line of fence.   And there's a whole lot more there to see, over every hill and curve.
We gravitate towards "presets" in our traveling this planet, as well.  We all peg ourselves to places on the globe that we hold near and dear:  disney, hollywood, the Mall, etc. etc.  Yet the places in between, around, behind, and across are, in all probability, far more interesting.  They are changing all the time, challenging us to see rather than having someone show us.
Like 85 South out of Dickinson to Belle Fourche.
Like conversations with my soon-to-be-93-year-old mother.
There's a grace to that, but no app for it.