Close to Home: Sometimes you have to leave Knoxville to see it.

There is something about leaving home that makes coming back feel different.

I don’t mean packing a suitcase, boarding a plane or disappearing for two weeks. Sometimes all it takes is a day.

Drive out of Knoxville early one morning. Head toward the mountains, wander through a small East Tennessee town, visit a place you’ve driven past a hundred times or simply follow a road because you’ve never followed it before.

For a few hours, Knoxville disappears from the rearview mirror.

And that may be exactly what we need.

When we live somewhere long enough, we stop noticing it. Familiarity has a way of turning remarkable things into background scenery.

The Tennessee River becomes the river we cross on the way to somewhere else. The Sunsphere becomes something we barely glance at. The mountains in the distance are simply part of the horizon.

We know which roads to avoid at rush hour, where construction will slow us down and which traffic light seems determined to stay red until tomorrow.

Then we leave for the day.

Maybe we find a beautiful little town with a charming downtown. We enjoy lunch at a restaurant we’ve never tried. We discover a museum, walk through an antique store or sit somewhere with a view that makes us wonder why we don’t take more days like this.

For a while, we become visitors instead of residents.

Visitors notice things.

Then comes the drive home.

At some point, the landscape becomes familiar again. The road signs start naming places we know. The mountains settle into their usual place along the horizon.

And suddenly, what we stopped seeing becomes visible again.

There is the river.

There is downtown.

There is that skyline that may not impress someone from New York or Chicago but belongs unmistakably to us.

There is Knoxville.

Travel reminds us that other places can be wonderful without making home less wonderful. In fact, discovering someplace new can sharpen our appreciation for the place waiting for us at the end of the road.

Maybe that is one reason day trips are so satisfying. They give us just enough adventure to break the routine without taking us so far away that we forget what we are coming home to.

We leave looking for something different.

We return noticing what was here all along.

Sometimes loving home means staying close to it.

And sometimes it takes leaving Knoxville for a day to remember why we are so glad to come back.

This column will explore adventures that are ‘Close to Home, Far from Ordinary,’ and if you have some to share, please send them to news@knoxtntoday.com.

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