The Bluest Sky

 Do you ever just get into the mood to explore the beautiful world all around?  Today our school gave us all a free afternoon.  The two gifted hours arrived in the perfect timing with the most amazingly blue skies I think I have ever seen.  Possibly the blue sky pierced the gloom and clouds that have cuddled our landscape for so long...  All I know is Mom and I HAD to go on one of our famous drives.  We knew we wanted to see something magical, something to capture in pictures and in our hearts to commemorate such a beautiful day...

 In our travels to Paris  (yes, my dears!  Paris!!!) we discovered what appeared to be an old French fairy tale castle...  It was a shade of palest, baby pink, and it was standing far off against the sky.  Oh, yes, the castle called us to turn the car around, "Come back!  Come visit!!!"  We obeyed the call.  After all, when can a pair of Midwestern women visit a pink castle in Paris on a sunny February afternoon? 

 The rooftop pointed our vision to the skies...  What caused this castle to be abandoned?  What princess or fairy weaver had left the hall so long ago and let the ruins and brambles overtake the view?  We circled around.

 The back seemed desolate...  What kind of saucy scullery maid had worked her way through the courts in this place? We believed we might see the hint of civilization in that cart....  but alas!  Where was the fancy steed that had pulled it there?  We drove away with one last look at our pink Parisian castle

 Ah...  the castle is set in a cemetery...  a beautiful, old cemetery called Walnut Grove in Paris, Missouri.

 Now, let me ask you this.  If you were driving along and saw this, wouldn't you circle back to visit its majesty, as well? 

“What a fool, quoth he, am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty! I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle”  -----  John Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress)