1000 Miles to Denver
On the American road
On a recent road trip from Chicago to Colorado my travel heart opened once again. Travel has always been a part of my essentials. Not only the wanderlust in me that often fills my dreams, but the fuel for a creative life.
However, this particular trip with my wife was one of delivery. We were carrying in our vehicle heirloom china, precious cargo purchased in the U.K. decades ago by her father now being delivered to my stepdaughter and her home outside Denver. This was to be a passing-down of a family treasure and because it was such delicate material, too fragile for postal shipping, we took to the road.
As always, road trips allow time for the mind to process, to dream, to see the world differently, as it really is, as we hope it to be. Before us was middle-America, the beginnings of the American West, a sense of freedom, an America without frills, and a little of what writer Gretel Ehrlich called “the solace of open spaces.”
This kind of journey deserved more than words. It deserved poetry. So, despite my meager abilities at such work, I took on the job anyway.
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1000 Miles to Denver
David W. Berner
