I was in Knoxville on Tuesday. Drove up from Columbia, SC where I spent mothers day. Wonderful day. The drive through the mountains was very nice. Had a lunch that my mother packed at a rest stop in Tennessee. In your fifties you rarely get to eat a sack lunch packed by mom. They are always a treasure.
There is something about East Tennessee that just haunts me. In a good way. I just never can get it out of my head. It has a certain smell and feel that is distinctive. Whenever I am there I feel like I shouldnt leave. Like the very ground is calling out to me, reminding me that it was here that I drew my first breath and here I am bound to.
While on I-40 I had this feeling I should stay in my rental car and go either east or far west, but not go home to Minnesota. East would take me toward I-81, Johnson City, Elizabethton and other familial grounds. Go west to the end of the highway and I'd be in St. Louis, with my son and daughter in law. For a moment both seemed better than home and both seemed like home. I calculated in my head went I would arrive at either place.