In My Mom Era

If you’ve spent any amount of time around here, you’ve probably figured out that I collect things.

Books, obviously.

At last count, my Goodreads Want to Read list was somewhere in the neighborhood of completely freaking ridiculous, and I have absolutely no intention of fixing that problem.

I collect photographs. Stories. Random bits of history. Rabbit holes that start with one innocent Google search and somehow end three hours later with 47 tabs open and me knowing entirely too much about a subject I hadn’t even thought about that morning.

Apparently, I collect places, too.

And honestly?

I think I always have.

I Collect Places Like I Collect Books

There are places I’ve been that I desperately want to go back to.

Places I’ve driven through once and still think about years later.

Places I’ve seen in photographs and immediately thought, Yep. Put that on the list.

Places I’ve discovered because we were headed somewhere completely different and I saw a sign along the highway and said some variation of:

“WAIT. WHAT’S THAT?! TURN THERE.”

My husband loves this about me.

That’s a lie.

He’s learned to live with it. 😂

But the more I started thinking about all the places I want to write about here on In My Mom Era, the more I realized something:

I collect places exactly like I collect books.

There are the ones I’ve finished.

The ones I loved so much I’d experience them all over again.

The ones sitting patiently on my list waiting for their turn.

And approximately 4,000 more I will probably add before I ever make it through the ones already there.

Sound familiar?

Welcome to My Other TBR

Except this one doesn’t mean To Be Read.

It means:

To Be Roamed.

And ohhhh boy, is THAT list getting long.

There are National Parks I want to stand in.

Tiny towns I want to wander through.

Main Streets where I want to park the car, get everybody out, and just start walking.

Bookstores I haven’t discovered yet.

Historic sites where I know I’ll end up reading every single plaque while my family waits for me.

Roadside attractions that are objectively ridiculous—which obviously means we’re stopping.

Playgrounds worth driving completely out of our way for.

Museums.

Beaches.

Mountains.

Old hotels.

Ghost stories.

Restaurants somebody’s grandmother has been running for 46 years.

Places everybody knows.

Places almost nobody knows.

And places we’ll find completely by accident.

I want them all.

So… I Made Another Collection

Because apparently 3,000-something unread books weren’t enough.

I’m starting to collect America.

Not souvenirs.

Places.

And I’m going to keep track of them right here.

One of the ideas I’ve been working on is a new series called:

Main Street, USA — The Towns You Shouldn’t Pass Up.

And the very first one?

Farmington, Missouri.

Home.

Because before I start telling you about little towns scattered across America that deserve a stop, it feels right to begin with the one I know best.

From there?

Who the hell knows.

That’s kind of the point.

Maybe we’ll deliberately drive somewhere because I’ve researched it for weeks.

Maybe Irish dance will take us there.

Maybe we’ll be headed to a National Park.

Maybe somebody will invite us.

Maybe I’ll see an old building from the passenger seat and yell “TURN AROUND!”

All of those are equally plausible.

And Then I Had Another Idea…

What if I put all of these places on a map?

An actual In My Mom Era travel map.

Every place we’ve visited.

Every town featured in Main Street, USA.

Every National Park site.

Every bizarre roadside attraction.

Every destination playground.

Every historical place.

Every bookstore.

And, because apparently I enjoy creating projects for myself…

Every place on my To Be Roamed list.

Then every time we go somewhere new, another pin moves from someday to WE WENT THERE.

Basically…

Goodreads, but for places.

And if you know anything about the condition of my Goodreads account, you understand exactly how out of control this map is eventually going to become.

I Cannot Wait.

I don’t want this blog to only be about the big destinations.

Of course I want to take my kids across oceans.

I want to show them National Parks and enormous cities and famous landmarks and places we’ve spent years dreaming about.

But I also want them to know that sometimes the place worth remembering is the town you almost drove past.

The diner you found because everybody was hungry.

The weird museum advertised on a billboard.

The playground that bought you another two hours of sanity on a road trip.

The bookstore you didn’t know existed.

The historic building that made you wonder, Wait… what happened here?

The road you weren’t planning to take.

Those count, too.

Maybe especially those.

So, yes.

Apparently I collect places.

Places we’ve been. Places we love. Places we stumbled across. And a truly unreasonable number of places we haven’t gotten to yet.

The collection keeps growing.

And now?

I’m putting pins in it.

📚📍❤️

Kelly