Blue Highways

            Blue Highways is a book by William Least Heat-Moon that I read about 40 years ago. The book, as I recall, describes how, denied tenure at a university, the author decides to drive around the country going only on the highways on his map colored blue, which excluded all the Interstate Highways. His companion was his dog.

 

            Kim and I decided to travel back and forth to Atlanta using only blue highways. We didn’t use a paper map, so there was nothing blue. Instead, we told our GPS (we named her Gertrude) to stay off of expressways. Gertrude agreed, though I did detect some reluctance in her tone of voice.

 

            So, a couple of weeks ago, when we drove down to Atlanta to stay a few days, see family, close the sale of our condo, and pack stuff for the movers and our own reliable car, we traveled using blue highways. By staying off expressways for the 1,000-mile drive (each way), we avoided trucks, excessive speeds, and a hypnotic sameness of the view. We traded that for an exploration of our country: the farms, the small towns and restaurants (not always great), the old barns, and the hills and the clouds.

 

            Kim spent much of the trip with her camera pressed against the window, taking pictures of, mainly, the fields and clouds. Many of the photos did not turn out well enough, due to the motion of the car, the bugs on the tinted windshield, and the hand-speed necessary to get the camera aimed and focused as we drove through a scene.

 

            But this doesn’t really matter. Kim was seeing and appreciating, whether her camera caught what she saw or not. This is her artist’s eye, and it informs her love of the world. I, on the other hand, suffer from a condition that I named “male pattern blindness.” I miss stuff, unless it’s pointed out to me. This happens around the house, a lot, but also in the garden and in the car, where at least I have an excuse that I’m driving. Kim’s capacity for appreciation is amazing, especially considering her potentially distracting health issues. She was also collecting pictures for future landscape paintings - studying the colors of clouds and fields.

 

            Here are a few of Kim's photos from our trip, in no particular order:

 

We missed most of the rain.

One of the bigger small towns we passed through. Note blue highway signs.

Clouds were always with us.

Kentucky has black barns.

We saw a lot of barns in need of repair.

newer version

Twisting roads in Kentucky

Looks like a . . . ?

Chattanooga speaks.

Amazing what is required to put a road through the mountains.

Bumper Crop

We saw a lot of productive farms.

Exciting Sky

Another Blue Highway Town

Somehow this did not rain on us.

Functioning, but needs paint

Blue Highway