Interactive. I've been thinking about that the last few days as we've crossed bridges with water underneath. Sizable or small bodies of water, with no signs—nameless to the traveler. That frustrates me. I am not a student of geography. Nor do I study the territory ahead while traveling. I might know a few of the great rivers and their locations, surely not the smaller local creeks and waterways.

When I approach the water, I am then ready to know and contemplate its name. If it has one, I desire at that point to be informed of it. This is an admission that my stance in relation to some aspects of life is just to take things as they come. Truly.

I am imagining the collective eye-rolling now of those who know or have branded me as a worrier, as someone who's always thinking ahead and not necessarily in a light-hearted way. But when it comes to organizing my experiences, in many realms, I follow, encounter, learn. Spontaneously.

That could be traceable to having a very intelligent, curious, capable older sister. It was through her that I had many of my first interactions with life. I also left it to her to know street names, types of birds, good books, music, food from around the world, which aunt was married previously—I could go on and on. Following that model, I have gone my merry way.

But I am not without my own inner direction at times. The un-signed bridges I have encountered on this trip are revealing this to me, through an empty feeling that comes from crossing a bridge of not-knowing.

My memories of childhood in Oklahoma were full of bridge crossings: over rivers, creeks, parts of lakes, and dry, cracked dirt. The bridges might have been wooden and rumbly, frighteningly rusted or rotted, silvery and new, restful pale green—but they seemed to have one thing in common: a sign to the right on either end, which named the body of water.

But in many places on this trip, they're just not there. Were they once, but disappeared due to budget restraints, like rest stops? Or did someone decide for whatever reason to withold that information. Had I better maps, I might have been driven to study them now. I do know that depriving us of these names eats away at the great romance that is the flow of water. Water that stops us and shapes us to the point that we must bridge it. Water that starts in one spot, merges or ends far far away, or trickles briefly and disappears. To know the name elicits dreams, fantasies, a few seconds of interest, or perhaps contributes to one's understanding of the grand scheme of things.

When we traveled as children, we talked, argued, sang, played highway games, slept, held our sleeping younger brothers or sisters. We looked out the window.

In our family, the approach of a bridge generated excitement. Someone might call out the name of the water below. It might be a familiar frequently crossed bridge, a new one on a rare vacation, or a little wooden one hidden in the dusty Oklahoma country where our dad grew up. It didn't matter. Sometimes a famous river would be encountered for the first time, and it felt that in seeing it, we had all won something.

The root of our excitement about the bridges themselves was planted early in our lives by Dad.

Once we were on a bridge, committed, no turning back, he would say "Hope this bridge doesn't fall in before we get across." His delivery would vary over the years—sometimes laconic, sometimes urgent, to get it out before we were across—but always, the words and the idea made us shiver. The nature of this interaction between Dad, bridges, and us rested on the fact that very occasionally, he would forget to recite "Hope this bridge doesn't fall in before we get across." Thus we were in dual suspense until the last creak or rumble of the wheels on the bridge was heard: Would we make it across? Would Dad "say it"? We always made it, and sometimes he didn't say it. And that's when we would shout finally, triumphantly: "He didn't say IT!!!"

Ah, interactive. Our lives now are full of self-conscious interactivity. Everywhere our phones (mobile devices) and computers and dvd players take us. The kids in the car are interacting with something they're holding, or watching on a screen on the back seat, or each other (after all, we're still human in this 21st century). And I know this is sounding suspiciously good-old-days. But I had some of those old days. Some of them were good, and are a part of me.

And I 'm thinking that maybe the bridge signage deciders decided that it just doesn't matter anymore that we, just now, can learn the name of the water we're crossing. The name that holds stories, time, miles, mystery. And so this is the way it is? We have no signs; let them Google it...