May 22, 2008

Preparing to light out for Carbondale, which is not that much preparation since I didn’t fully unpack from New York. Got the service and my little sermon written. Chose clothes that I hope will not look too ridiculous.

Holiday Inn, Carbondale, Illinois, after a drive that was far too long, through land that was, all in all, stunningly beautiful. Saw a heron standing and three in flight, one high up over the colossal gray-brown Ohio. The French Broad is a mighty river in Tennessee. Mapquest sent me through the wilderness behind the hotel, but also through flocks of bluebirds, looking steely and mysterious in the evening night. Many deer dead along the road, apparently fresh. I raged through Tennessee, so that I was at peace through Kentucky, recovered in two days from the imagined calamities of New York.