I never finished sharing my photos from Italy with you. The photo above was taken from the Torre Grossa in the town center of San Gimignano, Italy. It’s quite the climb to the top, but well worth every step of it.

I’m posting the photo because today I was contemplating what our country would look like if were were more reliant on public transportation and less in love with our cars. If we were willing to invest in preserving farm land and rural areas and concentrating people into cities with walkable services and jobs. If we’d never invented the suburbs in the post-WWII days.

Would we look more like the rural areas of Europe? Would we still have the small towns that provided the foundation of our country? Would we see the same tumbled together jumble of fruit groves, vineyards and vegetable rows?

I’m not sure. But I do know that every time I look at my photos from Italy I’m transported back to that magical country. To the sounds and smells and sights of a country that respects it’s food traditions and farmers, that values it’s history and preserves it’s heritage.

And it makes me tentatively hopeful that our young country can come through this time to do the same. To reclaim who we once were - the inventors, the hard workers, the thinkers, the farmers and the producers that shaped our country and the entire world.