Of all the geographers' works we have read, I tend to favor these of Pierce Lewis. His concept of going out there and "looking" at what is around you and the article "Learning from Looking..." really captured my interest. Geography can be taught from books and articles but in order to really appreciate the total landscape and people/places, one must venture out of his comfort zone and experience the entire area. It is clear why he has been rated as one of the top geographers in Jeffrey Smith's writing.

In his article, "Learning from Looking," Lewis mentions that what we do to a certain place has a lot to do with what we think of that particular place. Many people think of Nevada as a pit; in fact, much of our nuclear waste has been deposited in Nevada through the years. I used to think the same way; it was boring and nothing but sand and desolation in every direction. However, once I began studying geology, I began seeing Nevada through different eyes. It has its own beauty and the deeper I dug, the more beauty I found.

Lewis' review on Bellefonte, PA was a carefully written history of a small town that had its birth in better, more promising times and is now faced with a slow and painful illness. He states that, "Small towns may be sick, but they ar far from dead." I tend to agree with Lewis in that I have always preferred to live in a small town. Growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, MO, I rarely ventured into the city, yet preferred to head to the river and the woods on horseback to enjoy nature. Since my graduation from High School, I have never lived in a town with more than 30,000 population. In the article, a poll was conducted which showed that most people preferred to live in small towns over big cities; the community relations in a small town were more favorable in contrast to the cost of living in a big city being the incidence of high crime. Yet, in his article Lewis tends to see that the overall mood or common feeling among those inhabitants of Bellefonte as one of "lost hope" in their community. This is the part that is sad to me; the hopelessnes and despair that these people feel towards their home, the place where they live. This place that once offered so much promise and hope, has turned into somewhat of a dying ghost town on the verge of extinction.

Which brings up another point for me. I am almost finished reading Route 66: Iconography...
I can't help but feel a great sense of loss due to the fact that Route 66 was right outside my door while I was growing up. Many weekends were spent on the road with my dad, traveling to various places along the original highway that I have been reading about. I have fond memories of stopping at "mom and pop" cafes along the road, putting quarters into the private jukebox on our table and singing along to tunes which included, you guessed it, "Get your kicks on Route 66." These quaint one of a kind restaurants have sadly been replaced by the "clone" restaurants like Cracker Barrel, Chiles, Applebys, and McDonalds. It's a rare occasion to find the traditional roadside cafes that used to dominate the Route 66 landscape. This past summer my daughter and I took a road trip to the Grand Canyon and decided to venture out of the way a bit and traverse the last remnant of Rte. 66 east of Flagstaff. I don't know what I expected, but the first place at which we stopped was a store which carried all kinds of memorabilia from Rte. 66. Not antiques, but reproductions of things one might have seen along the way (such as those which were a comfort for me as a child). It definitely wasn't the same for me and left me with a bit of anxiety and depression and the feeling that I couldn't get off that stretch of highway fast enough; perhaps like the remaining inhabitants of Bellefonte, PA.

Although one can't change the inevitable; change itself is inevitable. We can only appreciate all that is around us right now, treasure it and learn that it is not going to be forever. But it holds forever a place in our hearts and memories, that is something we can never lose nor can anyone take from us.