Perspective

Chris:  There is a corn nut on the floor of the bathroom in the most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in .  The underside of the toilet is dirty. 

But perspective is everything .  With no campgrounds close by we found a cheap motel in Bonifay, Florida.  There are about 40 rooms here and the very nice owner says that he only rents four of the rooms to wayfarin’ strangers like us.  The rest are permanent residents who reside here full time.  They amble around the courtyard and their belongings spill out into the sidewalk. 

That made me think of some of the big houses I rode past yesterday set way back off the road.  Everyone who lives on my road could comfortably live in one of those home with bedrooms to spare.  If you lived there you could decide to go north for the summer and never leave your home.  Can you imagine the cleaning bill on that place?  You could get your 10,000 steps a day in just by walking to the west wing. 

I have a lot of time on the bike to think deep thoughts.  I don’t play music because I have a thing for listening to birds sing.  And I sing.  Yesterday I sang my way through the Beatles, Willy Nelson, CCR, Dolly Parton, nursery rhymes and so many hymns.  And I thought about the ingredients that give a song long lasting “shelf value” to put it in book terms.  I wonder what someone will be singing 50 years from now when they’re biking across the Southern Tier of America.  The songs that last and cross generations are the ones that are easy to sing along with.  Which is why I can’t understand why they don’t play choral music at the Super Bowl halftime show or something that we could all sing along with.  The positive effects of singing on the brain are proven by research.  Look it up.  I can’t explain everything to you.. I really want to post a picture of that corn nut on the bathroom floor but I hear my mother:  “Chris-TEEN.  Don’t be so crude”.

Instead I’ll post a picture of a lovely river that runs through the cute little town of Marianna, Florida.  I wanted the locals to think I was appreciating their town by stopping to take a pic but in truth I had made it to the top of the bridge and was so winded I needed a break so I played tourist for a moment.