Childhood Memory #2: Traveling

I didn't really get a "hankering" for travel until rather recently.  I am not a comfortable traveler, per se.  I do it for the reward at the end.  I simply hate the process of it and that starts from packing to boarding whatever mode of transportation fits the trip.  Once on the plane, or in the car (as those are the only modes I have tested so far) I am able to exhale and start my journeys.

There are trips I remember from my childhood that I absolutely am swept away with.  Some were very plain and normal, like camping.  Those trips were wonderful!  I think about camping now with a bit of trepidation - OK a lot of trepidation!  I have no romantic ideas of what it would be like to spend a night under the stars...  My fear of carnivorous wild life sucks out what little verve is left after the thought of peeing down my leg when there are no available toilets.  Although Spud has posted a very wonderful camping trip here, I am not swayed.  I will camp at the Hilton, thank you very much!

I took a trip as a worldly 15 year old to Santa Fe, NM with my 9th grade class.  That was fun too, if not a little harrowing.  I didn't fit in as well as those popular girls and there was a rather humiliating picture of my bum taken sticking out of my sleeping bag while I drooled on my pillow.  Still, I remember the trip as one that I completely enjoyed and I took enough pictures that one of my childhood albums has remembrances in it.

Another trip, I think I was around 10 or 11 years old, was back east in the summer months.  I remember those travels as being very fun.  It was enthralling for a "town kid" to wander the back woods of Maryland, swimming in a pool at our uncle's and just generally having the time of our lives whiling the days away on hikes amid some very green canopies.

My family never traveled extensively, but those few times we did instilled in me an appreciation for trips that I hold dear to this day.  My husband travels constantly with his work these days and I am so very grateful that he is generous and gracious with me when he lets me gallivant off to some destination I have dreamt up.  He has taught me that travel doesn't have to be completely planned and "itinerary-ed" to death - some of the best trips he and I have taken were spontaneous and very ill prepared for. He has also taught me to be a confident traveler and to take it all in.

Thank you dear, for instilling in me a desire to see more than just my back yard! By the way, I will be heading off to....