A blessing (in my view) or a curse of being a geomorphologist is that you are never completely “off the clock,” because there are landforms and landscapes everywhere, and in all but the most heavily urbanized and industrialized areas, you can almost always see something interesting.

So here I am on vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC, a destination and timing selected because my son and daughter-in-law live here, and my grand-daughter is due within the next 10 days or so. I went out for a run on the beach this morning (one of the few surfaces my bad knees tolerate any more), and could not help but think that it would be a great day for a class field trip. Not a classic summer beach day by any stretch—cloudy, rainy, lightning out over the ocean, and a strong wind from the east, not typical at this time of year. But a lot to see along the shore.

Topophilia is the affective bond between people and places, and also the title of an influential 1990 book by human geographer Yi Fu Tuan. I was thinking about this yesterday as my wife and I drove across the North Carolina coastal plain to visit relatives. Highway 70 from Raleigh east toward the coast is not a scenic drive by any objective standard. The topography is flat and monotonous, and the road corridor is infested with strip malls, billboards, convenience stores, and tourist traps.

Yet, as it does every year when I make the trek east from Kentucky, this crappy stretch of highway triggered fond associations with eastern North Carolina—topophilia, I reckon. I am a native of the region, taught for nine years at East Carolina University, and my wife’s family lives there. My post-dissertation field research sites were there, and there are some sites I still monitor during my family visits.