It’s summertime, but up here in the Pacific Northwest where I live, you wouldn’t know it, because it still feels like early spring. I was sitting here thinking about all the various places I have driven through in this big and beautiful country of ours. I have personally driven in each of the lower 48 states, and I have set foot in Alaska on a camping trip when I was in my teens. But since I’m not a fan of flying, Hawaii will have to wait until they build a bridge from here to there before I will occupy any real estate on that beautiful cluster of islands. It has been several years since I have driven outside of the western part of the U.S., but I have fond memories of each region I have been to. I love Kentucky in the springtime, am intrigued by the accents in the New England states, I feel at peace when I travel through the fly-over midwestern states, and I can’t help but feel wilder and freer when I blaze a trail through the desert southwest. We live in a beautiful and exceedingly diverse country, my friends, so don’t let anyone convince you that we, as Americans, lack diversity. We have every walk of life from every corner of the Earth right here, and every time I find myself in another part of this country I am unfamiliar with, I tell myself that someday I will come back through there and, hopefully, have the time to slow down and take a closer look and to meet the people (the locals that make each town or region what it is). I’ll pass through and pass on, but one day I’ll be back around.
I’LL BE BACK AROUND
By Trevor Hardwick
Everywhere I go,
I see the people, and the places.
All the different walks of life,
As I’m rollin’ through their towns.
Maybe I’m just passin’ through,
If only for a moment.
But rest assured, you have my word,
That I’ll be back around.
Hello to the beaches,
Out in sunny California.
Hello to the people,
Up around the Puget Sound.
From the Black Hills out in Sturgis,
To the balloons in Albuquerque.
I’m there and gone, and I’ll move on,
But I’ll be back around.
Shout out to the kind of folks,
Who live out in Nevada.
Where UFOs and desert roses,
Seemingly abound.
I’ll hold my breath,
The next time that I roll through Colorado.
With bloodshot eyes, and contact highs,
But I’ll be back around.
Like tumbleweeds in Kansas,
I’ll slip through the plains of Texas.
I won’t forget the friends, in Mississippi,
That I’ve found.
The people are like sugarcane,
In southern Louisiana.
They’re sweet, but like a hurricane,
I’ll be back around.
Up the Eastern Seaboard,
And across the Adirondacks.
The locals have an accent,
And I love the way it sounds.
The Midwest fields of dreams,
And beans, and corn, and dairy farmers.
They feed my family, and my soul,
So, I’ll be back around.
Everywhere I go,
I see the people, and the places.
I see different walks of life,
As I’m rollin’ through their towns.
Maybe I’m just passin’ through,
If only for a moment.
But rest assured, you have my word,
That I’ll be back around.