A thought about wonder

Well, the last couple of days have been incredibly nice, weather wise, and it made me think aback to the time that I lived in Southern Illinois. For some reason or another, there was something different about this weather, particularly on sunday, that reminded me of Southern Illinois, or at least the times that I would go venture out with a few of my friends to Giant City State Park in Makanda, illinois. Now, this was only about 20 miles from the university and a few friends and i would go out there on really nice days on the weekends or when we had no work to do, and relax on the cliffs and possibly catch a buzz. Makanda is a small village with a population of about 450 people. It's got a small boardwalk area and an incredible scenic backdrop to it. The reason that I bring up this topic is because of the wonder of memory and how it can be triggered by anything, even the weather. Now, I don't think about Southern Illinois all the time, I do a lot, but not all the time, but for some reason or another when I was out for a stroll on sunday, something clicked in my head. At one time or another, the temperature and weather of sunday struck a chord with me, and I just remembered of going on a nice fall day to Giant City with my buddies and hike around the rock formations. We may bring a bottle of liquor or some beer or whatever to the park and really enjoy ourselves out there. We'd go to the boardwalk and get some food, some incense, and hot sauce (there's a shop that has a huge selection of hot sauce for some reason). The ability for my brain to relate the weather to a memory of Southern Illinois is incredible. Something that is over 800 miles away from Richmond. There is a sense of wonder about that, how we as humans can relate something as mundane as the weather to a really good memory of something so far away. I'm providing some photographs of giant city and makanda so you all can take a look at it. But, this was something that came to me on sunday, how it is wonderful that we as people can do this. Create such odd little connections in out head and related them to a completely different environment that one we're presently in. To me, that is something of wonder.