I love the research, I love the anticipation, I love having the reservation print-out tacked to the little cork board by my desk. I love making lists, buying do-dads specific to the trip, looking up places to eat and things to do. I love packing and loading the van and camper-getting everything just-so. I love the drive and seeing new stuff and setting up camp or moving into our room for the night or the week-nesting. I love the day-trips from our base camp, I love seeing the buildings and cemeteries and museums and people in new places-new views or old favorites.
I love taking pictures-the obligatory snapshots of the view and mugging kids, the more rare shots of clouds piled on an unfamiliar horizon or a new flower or bird, the occasional photographic gem. I love making my little travel movie inside my head as we go through our days in new places. I even love coming home, to round the curve in the driveway and see the house, nearly hidden in the summer from the ditch tree that has taken over the front yard. Letting the dogs out of their pen to run and jump and sniff us. Stopping to pet each cat in turn, having to wiggle the lock because the door sits in the frame at an angle.
That wash of 'closed up house' smell-a little stale, faint traces of fabric softener and maybe a scented candle gone soft in the heat. Being amazed at how HUGE the house seems-all that space, what do we DO with it all? Turning on the air, turning on the hot water heater, unloading the last dregs of food, loading up the washing machine, checking messages, checking the bathroom ceiling to be sure the leak is still at bay-so far, so good! Soaking in my own hot bathtub, rinsing my hair and shaving my legs and getting into my own huge bed that is just exactly as soft as I like and has a feel like nothing else in the world.
I love to go and I love to return. I am so, so, so lucky to have both things. Sometimes I want to feel sorry for myself for small injustices, but I have it pretty good.
Up next, a fall trip up the Natchez Trace starting at Natchez, Mississippi and driving north until I hit Cherokee, AL, with stops all along the way home and one on the way there-at Meridian to pay homage to the gypsy queen buried there.
After that, the yet-unplanned but much talked about Christmas Trip. Next fall, Disney World again. In between, another trip to Holt Lake, another swim at Grundy, another drive on the Cherohala Skyway, maybe a few days at Niagara Falls or a long weekend in West Virginia. The whole entire world is out there and it's all amazing in some way or another.
