I remember on childhood trips to visit my grandparents in southwest Michigan that I’d gaze out the car window and watch the world whiz by. I could see that flowers grew along the roadside, but I never paid much attention to them. I was too busy looking for the old cars that farmers left out to rot in their fields. I wonder why you don’t see that very often anymore.
Anyway, when I started taking road trips a few years ago and pulled my car off the road to photograph old pavement, old bridges, and old homes, I couldn’t avoid noticing the variety of color in the roadside blossoms. The first time I photographed one of those flowers, I found something irresistibly calming about it. So now I look for flowers at every stop and photograph them all.
I took just one traditional road trip this season – my late-May trip across Ohio’s National Road, which I wrote about all summer. (The first post in that journey is here, in case you missed it.) True to form, I photographed flowers all along the route. Phlox was plentiful, such as this bunch I found along the abandoned brick road leading away from the bridge at Blaine.
I also found this pink blossom at Blaine, but I have no idea what it is.
Yet more phlox at Blaine. The abandoned brick roadway was thick with wildflowers.
I found this wild rose at the 1830 John Carnahen bridge, about which I did not write. But never fear, the fine folks at Bridgehunter.com offer a full report. This is my favorite flower photo from the trip. Can you spot the little bug?
I stopped to photograph a bridge on a 1914 concrete alignment when I came upon more phlox.
Almost all the way across the state, this daisy tilted toward the sun near the flood-control dam at Taylorsville Metropark north of Dayton.
I found plenty of this cheerful flower, which I think is butterweed, on the narrow path to the lost town of Tadmor.
With luck, next year I’ll spread my road trips out across the warm months and capture flowers from spring to autumn.
This is my fourth annual roadside flowers post. Check out the flowers from 2010, 2009, and 2008.
