RTW: Look at All the Pretty Places

Welcome to our 92nd Road Trip Wednesday!

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link in the comments - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.


This week's question:
What is the most inspiring setting you've ever visited in real life?


This should be easy. Key word: should. In fact, I'm actually finding it difficult to name the most inspiring setting I've ever seen with my own two eyes, drunk in with my senses, and that's set my soul to soaring.

Why is this so hard?

I'm torn between memories of my years living in the Mississippi backwoods, where trees were plentiful and you could get lost easily if you didn't know your way around. It was like a type of heaven for a kid like me. I've always been a loner, and I don't mean that in the way that I'm weird, smell bad, or hate the sight of other human beings. I'm only one of those three, and I'm glad. It's easy being weird, but I never forget to wear deodorant. That's just common sense. And people are okay in small quantities.

I loved the scenery of my past. It was a constant sea of green, that changed slightly when the "winter" came. Only the hardwoods changed their colors, and my world was still half green afterwards. Paradise.

And then I flash forward to only a few years ago when I graduated from high school. My family went on a trip to the British Virgin Islands, and we sailed from island to island on a catamaran that felt like a tiny floating palace. The water, the sea-life, the small islands covered in brush and cacti, arid amidst a vast expanse of turquoise. I was bronzed, relaxed, and at one with the rocking motion of my surroundings.

Those two places were full of inspiring scenes and scenery that took my breath away at times. I remember one crisp Fall day in Mississippi, the leaves were just beginning to change, I was on a four-wheeler, making my way over the river and through the woods to my grandfather's house, when all of a sudden, in front of me sprang a small herd of deer. They were all bucks, and they were mighty and proud. I could see their vibrancy in the way they held their heads and flew across the ground. I barely had time to react, I didn't even hit the brakes before they were gone and bounding fiercely through the woods. It's not something that you can forget. Even now, just writing about it gives me chills.

Down in the Caribbean, I felt like I was in another world half the time, since I spent half of my day in the water with my face submerged. I just couldn't get enough of what I saw. The colors, so vibrant, the shapes, shifting, merging, fantastic, all encased in an atmosphere of liquid that sparkled like a gem in the sunlight.

How can I choose? I can't. I won't. They're both equally inspiring, and perhaps in different ways, as I feel almost as if they are polar opposites yet the same in essence. One terra, one aqua. One youth, one coming-of-age. All mine.