Just Lines.

We're planning a trip down east next week - first time since 1992 that I've been back to the ancestral home.  My cousin is getting married in Summerside, PEI on the 28th, so we're taking Mom & Dad and heading down through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia before going over to the Island for the nuptials.

We'll be staying with and visiting relatives in Saint John and Bedford, and stopping in at all those places significant to the Cook and Shortliffe families.

I'm looking forward to seeing family that I haven't seen in a while, and revisiting all those summer standbys from my youth.  Having a Sussex Golden Ginger Ale and eating a Pal-0'mine bar.  Walking on the ocean floor when the tide's out, and seeing what's stranded in the pools.  Highways lined with lupins.  Fresh fish dinners.  Ferry rides.  The smell of K.C. Irving in Saint John.  That sense of being far from home but almost being home.

Planning the trip, we've ordered current road maps from all the States and Provinces we'll be visiting.  I love maps.  I've been studying every road we'll be taking, and imagining and remembering the scenery along the way.  They may be just lines on paper, but each is a route to memory and anticipation.

Can't wait.