I have always loved road trips, even family vacations in an overloaded Suburban with 3 kids and 2 dogs. As travel goes it is not the fastest, cheapest or even the most comfortable method but is almost always an adventure.
It is relaxing and exciting at the same time. One minute you are admiring the scenery and the next following a detour through tiny towns that seem frozen in time. Even getting lost can be the highlight of a trip when you discover places and attractions that you never knew existed. And yes, I even stop at historical markers.
The unusual names of the roads, towns and rivers that I pass always spark my imagination. I invent my own scenarios about how they got their names based on what I know of the history and culture of the area. On a recent trip to North Carolina it was near the end of my driving day when I caught the name of a river out of the corner of my eye. I must have been tired because I thought it said the “French Bread River”. Before long I had invented an elaborate tale about loaves of bread being used to smuggle information across the river to General Lee.
Sometime later I saw another sign noting the “South Branch of the French Broad River”. Feeling rather foolish I realized my mistake. It wasn’t bread it was broad. Laughing at my original scenario I told myself to reign in my imagination and get off the road for the night.
How silly to think that they would name a river after loaves of bread. Tomorrow, I thought, I will try to imagine who the French Broad was that inspired the name.
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