Tuscaloosa Sunset

Our friends Jerry and Carol invited us for dinner this evening so we headed out after visiting my mom this afternoon.
It's over an hour's drive on two-lane roads that wind southward. The terrain is hilly and the trees form a canopy over stretches of road in the hollows. It's almost dark enough to require headlights, but when you go over some of the crests, it looks like you can almost see the ocean in the distance. (That would be a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes, because the ocean is another four hours to the south.)

At one point I saw huge clouds grey as gun barrels off to the east and when we rounded a curve and the sunset was stunning. It looked like the embers of a fireplace burning blue, orange and red. I grabbed this shot with my iPhone.
Dinner was great, but what was even better is that we met two new friends.
Bob is working on his PhD, he's a yoga instructor, and plays bass. His wife Brandi is a volunteer who books talent for the Kentuck Festival in Northport, which is one of the best art festivals in the south. The couple has a five month old baby.
We spent the evening eating, talking about music, education, and doing meaningful work.
We hated to leave, but we didn't want to wear out our welcome, plus Tuscaloosa is an hour and a half away from home sweet home.
But this weekend has been incredible. It seems that we often get caught in a rut and each day begins to look like the next. It's when you're in a rut that the muse heads off to Tahiti to dance naked in the sands and drink mai tais while you're slogging through your day cursing your keyboard.
The moral to this story is to strive each day to take a short vacation even if it's through the pages of a good book, or music that lifts you up, or art that rocks the boat.
Life is short -- if you did something new every day, you'd have to live to be a billion years old to get it all done. This weekend was a good start.