lunar white, misty light flecks of snow, falling in the rock river to downtown sterling.  exits and entrances.
small milling towns, population 800 signs, blink and you'll miss them.  main street barber shop, lone siren
shatters the silence, bitter cold but beautifully luminous, exit sterling enter rock falls; farmhouses with
untouched antiques, ancient bottles of bitters and salves, their brown liquid sludge in dainty glass housings..

sometimes a particular map will have a delicate beauty so rich in the experience of a place that i will be
reminded once again why i started collecting them - there is a vast narrative, personal and ephemeral
aspect to these small triggers of a memory;  i couldn't bear to simply throw this fragile narrative away. 
i can still hear the mapmaker's jovial voice, quipping "hey, its a real work of art you got now!" 

this map was created in the morning by a hotel barista to help guide me from sterling to rock falls, illinois.
these are both small towns near the rock river (as indicated with our squiggly line glyph we've seen
so many times).  i remember the lady at the tollbooth along this journey, she was immaculately dressed and made
up like a news anchor and she spoke with an almost shakespearean quality when i asked how long to rock falls:
"12 miles" in a crystal-clear voice that was dignified yet somehow angelic; she didn't seem to belong in a tollbooth
collecting change from truckdrivers, but in rural illinois, these oddities become more commonplace, and welcomed...