Tonight I am lonesome for the sea~

It's been now nigh onto 5 months that I made my bucket list journey to Maine to see my very first lighthouse ever.  It was a trip that I'd planned on taking for many years now.  For some weird reason, 2012 seemed like a "now or never" moment and so I went.  Round trip it was a journey of a little more than 4,000 miles and I set out to do it alone.  I HAD to do it by myself~hard to explain, please just understand.

I left my home in Valley Center, Kansas in the early morning hours on Monday, May 26th and arrived back home to Sedgwick County that Friday about 8:30 in the evening, shortly after the sun went down.  In the time between leaving and coming back home again I made enough memories to last a good portion of my lifetime.  I travelled to states that I had only wondered about~Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Massachusettes, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maine.  

It was a "quest" of mine, this THING that I just had to do before I died.  What I didn't count on was the chance to see so many other things that life would offer me along the way there and they too were most wonderful.  

I learned that the fine folks in Illinois had the very good sense to name one of their towns after my home state.  What was weird was the fact that at my loneliest point out that day in Illinois, I happened upon the sign.  And rather than crying, I burst out laughing and smiling knowing that even though I wasn't in Kansas any longer, some great citizens of "the land of Lincoln" ALWAYS were.

While visiting the beautiful town of Owego, New York I learned the "proper way" to describe where I was, the "New England" term village.  It took a few times of mistakenly calling it a "town" to realize that there everyone called their home a village.  Not sure if I understand that yet, but LOL I finally got the idea.  What wonderful people live there, what a "fairy-tale" like place for me to see.  I loved it so much that I'm going back next year just to spend some time there.  You can't beat their New England hospitality.

As I travelled home back towards Kansas, I went through the city of Kent, Ohio totally by accident.  While I was there I had to stop and see the site on the Kent State campus where the massacre of Kent State students happened now, well over 40 years ago.  It was a very moving moment for me to see the very spot where students and national guardsmen clashed, resulting in the deaths of four Kent State students.  The protests against the war in Vietnam seem like several lifetimes ago now.  But just for that day in late May in the year of 2012, I could almost imagine them being there again.  May we have learned something from that awful experience.  It didn't have to happen.

The area near the grassy knoll, where the national guardsmen came up before the shooting began.  A sight of bloodshed and heartache four decades ago, now a quiet place, a peaceful area where a lot of reflection has taken place over the years.  I'm glad that I saw it this way~

But the main focus of my journey, the main reason for going was to see my first lighthouse and I remember the feeling that I felt when I FINALLY, a little over 2,000 miles later arrived at Cape Elizabeth, Maine and caught my first glimpse of the Portland Head Lighthouse.  It was a feeling I cannot describe, certainly one you just have to be there to know and understand.  I wandered all over the grounds that afternoon, soaking in everything I could possible see.  Word soon got around, after my having stopped in the gift shop and writing a very "out of state" check for some things, that a woman from Kansas had driven all the way there just to see their lighthouse.  I had at least 3 people come up to me and ask if I was the one.  The folks of Cape Elizabeth are a proud people and they take great honour in caring for the lighthouse.  It was a privilege to actually and finally get there. What turned into a 4,000 mile journey was well worth it as is evidenced by the photo below.

Before I left to return back home towards Kansas, I took a small video of what the sea was like.  I didn't post it to Facebook or this blog, leastwise I don't think so but of course a lot of "sleep" has taken place since then LOL.  But tonight I am posting it for you to see as well.  I don't know why but Maine has been on my mind today and revisiting it in this blog post has been a nice thing for me this evening.  

I sit here tonight in my "forever" home of Kansas, south central Kansas to be exact.  I'm where the land is flat and you can see forever and truly that's no joke!  I like it that way, as a matter of fact, it's the way I prefer to live.  The summer time fields of golden Hard Red Winter wheat are the ONLY seas that I have ever known.  Meeting Maine for the first time, getting my first glimpse of the beautiful and blue sea were treasures that I had only known about from books that I'd read.  That day in late May this year I was blessed to see the "real thing" and I thank God for the gift.  If I never were to see it again,  at LEAST I once saw it.  Good night all!  Dream of some place special tonight, no matter where it might be.

Keep in mind, by the way, that I'm about as "amateur" as they come when it comes down to being a videographer.  I hope that this video loaded correctly so that you can open it to view!  Fingers crossed all!