the thing about travelin
I discovered something pretty central to my personality back when I got my first car, a 61 Mercury Meteor. I discovered that even though my car had alternator problems and the driver's side door didn't always open and sometimes when it did, it didn't want to shut again, that I loved to move around.
I'd tool around the backroads to get to college and back. I'd take little solo roadtrips around Denton and Grapevine, back when there were still country roads there, just to unwind and see something new.
When I moved to Wales for a year, I hopped on trains and buses as much as possible and I even hitchhiked a few times. I learned to travel light and I backpacked around Europe with about two changes of clothes, a hair brush and my ID and dollars in a leather pouch I wore under my t-shirt. I loved being somewhere new and different. I even loved not knowing anyone or having any committments or having to "check in" or meet some crazy expectation. I lived kind of rough, stayed in hostels and ate fresh producers that the farmers sold in town. It was pretty wonderful. I must have looked like a vagabond, or a gyspy, with my long hair and long earrings and faded jeans, but I learned that in Italy, all women are beautiful, even a wide eyed Texas girl who'd been sleeping in hostels and on trains for weeks.
Being a Mom kept me tied to town most of the time, but when I worked in book publishing, they always sent me to the conferences and to little colleges to meet with professors and talk to them about how great our books were. Later, when I worked in software, I trained people and flew to DC and to went on retreats with other project managers and got to see places I wouldn't have seen otherwise like fancy island resorts from which I'd walk or bike away from to go in to town and hang out with the locals.
Later I took Annalise to Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, and then on a long roadtrip from Seattle back to Texas that took us through Montana and Wyoming and Utah and Arizona and New Mexico and dipped down to Colorado and then over to West Texas and down to Austin. Our dog, Keni, came with us on that trip, because it was also our move back to Texas. It made it somehow easier to see up close the space we'd been flying over in our trips from Seattle to Texas and back all those years. Annalise was very curious about the ansazi, so we stopped at all of the major and minor ancient civilization spots in the southwest as well as the big Dinosaur Park. In Chaco Canyon we were caught in a terrible storm that had us almost stuck in the middle of a field full of cows and ancient structures. I remember telling Annalise as we drove through the mud and were laughing and praying and the car was slipping and sliding that this was a situation in which liberal use of the "F" word was understandable and even expected. Travel gives you those experiences that stay with you forever. I'll never forget that one.
I'm remembering all of this as I sit in the Albuquerque airport. I missed my 11:20 flight, and I don't think I've EVER missed a flight. I've come close a few times, but I've never actuallly missed a flight. I'm going to blame this on traffic, Sunday morning fair or festival or something and then some shuttle problems and then security, and even though lots of super nice people let me go in front of them and even though I pulled out my sprint and had even been doing some long runs here in the high altitude, I just wasn't fast enough. I'm not upset, I'm just think it's kind of funny though I hate inconviencing my airport pick up buddies.
The cool thing is, the airport here has free internet access. Free Wifi in the airport - what a concept.
I should be home around 6ish...until then, I'm working and people watching.
file under: life in general
I'd tool around the backroads to get to college and back. I'd take little solo roadtrips around Denton and Grapevine, back when there were still country roads there, just to unwind and see something new.
When I moved to Wales for a year, I hopped on trains and buses as much as possible and I even hitchhiked a few times. I learned to travel light and I backpacked around Europe with about two changes of clothes, a hair brush and my ID and dollars in a leather pouch I wore under my t-shirt. I loved being somewhere new and different. I even loved not knowing anyone or having any committments or having to "check in" or meet some crazy expectation. I lived kind of rough, stayed in hostels and ate fresh producers that the farmers sold in town. It was pretty wonderful. I must have looked like a vagabond, or a gyspy, with my long hair and long earrings and faded jeans, but I learned that in Italy, all women are beautiful, even a wide eyed Texas girl who'd been sleeping in hostels and on trains for weeks.
Being a Mom kept me tied to town most of the time, but when I worked in book publishing, they always sent me to the conferences and to little colleges to meet with professors and talk to them about how great our books were. Later, when I worked in software, I trained people and flew to DC and to went on retreats with other project managers and got to see places I wouldn't have seen otherwise like fancy island resorts from which I'd walk or bike away from to go in to town and hang out with the locals.
Later I took Annalise to Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, and then on a long roadtrip from Seattle back to Texas that took us through Montana and Wyoming and Utah and Arizona and New Mexico and dipped down to Colorado and then over to West Texas and down to Austin. Our dog, Keni, came with us on that trip, because it was also our move back to Texas. It made it somehow easier to see up close the space we'd been flying over in our trips from Seattle to Texas and back all those years. Annalise was very curious about the ansazi, so we stopped at all of the major and minor ancient civilization spots in the southwest as well as the big Dinosaur Park. In Chaco Canyon we were caught in a terrible storm that had us almost stuck in the middle of a field full of cows and ancient structures. I remember telling Annalise as we drove through the mud and were laughing and praying and the car was slipping and sliding that this was a situation in which liberal use of the "F" word was understandable and even expected. Travel gives you those experiences that stay with you forever. I'll never forget that one.
I'm remembering all of this as I sit in the Albuquerque airport. I missed my 11:20 flight, and I don't think I've EVER missed a flight. I've come close a few times, but I've never actuallly missed a flight. I'm going to blame this on traffic, Sunday morning fair or festival or something and then some shuttle problems and then security, and even though lots of super nice people let me go in front of them and even though I pulled out my sprint and had even been doing some long runs here in the high altitude, I just wasn't fast enough. I'm not upset, I'm just think it's kind of funny though I hate inconviencing my airport pick up buddies.
The cool thing is, the airport here has free internet access. Free Wifi in the airport - what a concept.
I should be home around 6ish...until then, I'm working and people watching.
file under: life in general
Labels: favorite things, life
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