It may have been St. Francis of Assisi -- or Groucho Marx or Madonna, I forget which -- who said that the world is a book, and they who don't travel are reading only one page.
As a kid the farthest I ever got was central Florida. This was in the pre-Disney days, you understand, so there was basically nothing there but bugs and swamps. I was relegated to the back of a pickup truck that had been crudely tricked out as a camper. A boiling hot, dismal camper. The Okies escaping the Dust Bowl had more luxury. The memory is not a pleasant one. Of course, my mother featured in this episode, so that's enough explanation right there.
Neither Mama nor Daddy cared one whit about going anywhere, not even the beach. Daddy had had his four-year hitch in the Army in Europe during WWII, and that did it for him. He got back in one piece, and he aimed to stay put from then on.
The travel bug first bit me in college. Visiting classmates in exotic locales like Reading, PA, and Hackensack, NJ, was like being set down on a distant planet, and this small-town North Carolina gal loved every rundown row house, every turnpike snarl, every exotic sausage.
It was different than Lexington, you see. And different was interesting.
Picture a dog with its head stuck out of the window of a car, its mouth open and its tongue flapping in pure joy over being taken for a ride. That's me at the start of a trip.
I'm hardly a backpack-and-tent rambler -- I require a clean bed and indoor plumbing at the end of the day -- but travel eventually took on a spiritual quality. On the road, it's easier to find magic in the ordinary. Life is more vivid. You rediscover things you'd forgotten you missed.
Don't get me wrong. My "homepage" is a comfortable, familiar place to browse. The view from my sunroom is beautiful. But to take my breath away, give me a new vista anytime.
(I took the picture above in September 2008 on the Greek island of Santorini. It still takes my breath away...!)
As a kid the farthest I ever got was central Florida. This was in the pre-Disney days, you understand, so there was basically nothing there but bugs and swamps. I was relegated to the back of a pickup truck that had been crudely tricked out as a camper. A boiling hot, dismal camper. The Okies escaping the Dust Bowl had more luxury. The memory is not a pleasant one. Of course, my mother featured in this episode, so that's enough explanation right there.
Neither Mama nor Daddy cared one whit about going anywhere, not even the beach. Daddy had had his four-year hitch in the Army in Europe during WWII, and that did it for him. He got back in one piece, and he aimed to stay put from then on.
The travel bug first bit me in college. Visiting classmates in exotic locales like Reading, PA, and Hackensack, NJ, was like being set down on a distant planet, and this small-town North Carolina gal loved every rundown row house, every turnpike snarl, every exotic sausage.
It was different than Lexington, you see. And different was interesting.
Picture a dog with its head stuck out of the window of a car, its mouth open and its tongue flapping in pure joy over being taken for a ride. That's me at the start of a trip.
I'm hardly a backpack-and-tent rambler -- I require a clean bed and indoor plumbing at the end of the day -- but travel eventually took on a spiritual quality. On the road, it's easier to find magic in the ordinary. Life is more vivid. You rediscover things you'd forgotten you missed.
Don't get me wrong. My "homepage" is a comfortable, familiar place to browse. The view from my sunroom is beautiful. But to take my breath away, give me a new vista anytime.
(I took the picture above in September 2008 on the Greek island of Santorini. It still takes my breath away...!)
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