When I was little we used to go down to my uncle's house near Rosarito Mexico in the summer. Going across the border was exciting and kind of scary. It was strange to see a completely different world an hour from your home. In this world people banged on your windows to sell you dolls and hair clips, you couldn't drink the water, and the pastries were terrible. My uncle's house was on a cliff overlooking the beach. We had to climb down terrifying, switch-backed stairs to reach the private beach below and in the mornings you could sit on the stucco and brick wall and watch dolphins play in the uninhabited waters. I think these trips were the beginning of my love for travel.
We were home schooled, and as such were never bound by the kid-crushing restrictions of the California school system. My mom took us on hundreds of field trips, nature days, and sleep-overs. Once we all went camping with our best friends (the M-girls, as we affectionately called ourselves) and stayed for a few weeks, studying the creek and drawing with chalk dust in the dirt. It was a very free kind of education, a desire for which I have never been able to shake.
This love for freedom and travel increased in high school when my dad decided he wouldn't trust me behind the wheel of any of his cars until I had some serious experience. Dad travels a lot, and so instead of buying a few airline tickets, he took Afton and me, packed up the truck and started driving east. We went to Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Amarillo, St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis and beyond on these trips. They would span a week or so, and we would drive all night and all day until we reached the business meeting, conference, or appointment Dad had scheduled at the other end.
Once Afton and I got scared out of our minds when the St. Louis Hilton we were staying in lost its power due to a tornado nearing the city. We can deal with earthquakes (well, Afton can. I start shaking to the point that I can't tell when it stops) but TORNADOS? Once the lights came back on, it was just an amazingly fun lightning storm and an excuse to join Dad's cocktail-hour meet and greet and eat the hors duerves.
When I was a senior in high school four of my closest friends and I went to a music festival on the central coast. We camped with our best boys, ate only beans for dinner (Johnny let the cooler water into the tortillas and cheese), slept in the back of the car and had a blast. Then us girls took off and explored California for a week. We walked the entirety of San Francisco because we kept missing the trolley and got lost near Yosemite. These were some of the best times of my entire life.
I've seen the place James Dean died, The Chicago Institute of Art, sunrise over the Utah dessert, Italian cathedrals and museums, Abe Lincoln's birthplace, and a lightning storm so intense it lit up the New Mexican dirt to the point that it was white instead of red. I've climbed mountains, crawled through streams and camped for days with nothing but what my horse could carry up the mountain. I've eaten the best gelato in the world, listened to the English street musicians, seen the Sistine Chapel, and walked the streets of London. I've bathed in a pool we made in which we had to balance the icy mountain water with the natural hot-springs that were hotter than my jacuzzi can get.
Waking up in a different place gives your mind so much room to think. You don't have to worry about feeding the dog, or getting to work, or how in the world your groceries disappeared so quickly. You can watch dolphins swim, or look out the window at a desert sunrise and just observe. It's the closest the mind can get to blank, and I love the peace that comes from just watching your new surroundings.
With my early life punctuated by trips and adventures (family vacations also spanned the US), the restrictions that come from college enrollment are very hard for me to deal with. Every few months I get intense wanderlust. Living in the UK satisfied it for a while, but it is back with avengence. Today at work I got to my desk and saw a printed set of directions to Tulsa. I looked back at Amanda and her giggle told me I was not alone in wanting to get away (though I am not sure I would pick Tulsa). I want to go. I want to get on a train or a plane, or just turn my car a different direction on the way home.
I am afraid that that time in my life has past. I look forward to graduate school and work and see years of responsibility stretching before me. I can't wait to become a teacher or a writer who can bring what she does to where she goes. Some day this blog will be written from a train station or the ranger's station, my dear Florence, Magdelene College, or maybe just Tulsa.
