I'm back!
For good or for bad...
I love to plan trips. I can study and research maps and places for hours and days and months. There is a lot of fun in the anticipation factor - just imagining how wonderful the adventure and experience will be and how exciting it will be to personally experience beautiful places, cultures and meeting and mingling with new people.
The actual trip often lives up to those expectations and is everything you imagined it to be - perfect weather, wonderful vistas, passionate people, delicious food, amazing architecture - and even more: a connection to your very soul. But, sometimes there can be bad weather, horrendous traffic, flat tires, jet lag, and a myriad of other things that dampen the magic of the experience. Yet, despite the realities, it is still can be a life-altering experience.
Coming home after the trip, you find life has gone on without you and now you've got to catch up. Your body doesn't know what time it is and you've got 300 business emails all demanding a piece of you as soon as you get home... and your wonderful experience begins to fade as real life takes over. And soon a day or two later, you wonder - "Did I really go on that trip?"
I love to travel!
I've had an incredible experience. I love the thrill of "what's around the bend". I love to master the back roads of a foreign country. I love to speed on European freeways. I love to speak with people in different languages. I love to rekindle friendships with precious folks that I've know for three decades and seen only once or twice in those three decades and yet find an incredible connection and sense of love still there. I love to eat the most fantastic food every night. I love to capture it all in photos (I took over 2,800 photos - it filled up my 6 gig card... had I had two I would have been able to take twice as many)... I marvel at architectural wonders - castles, villages, hill towns, cathedrals... and I love dangling my feet in the sea at sunset, sitting on a mountaintop alone, or wandering through a vineyard in early morning before sunrise.
And I love sharing all of this with my family, as we bond together!
And here I find myself working on Saturday not wanting to work - not wanting to be here...
The reality is - if I really lived a vacationer's life all the time - would I get tired of it? Would it become boring and mundane? Would I hate it? I guess the real day-to-day life and the anticipation of the next adventure or bonding experience, make those adventures worth it just because they're not the real day-to-day experiences. They make us anticipate...
But, wouldn't it be fun to try it?
Happy anticipation...
7 comments:
We're anticipating a trip to California to get married! We can hardly wait!
I do dread the coming back part though too. Work is always a huge headache after being gone for anything longer than three days.
I am currently on a 30 day trip to NYC, Washington DC, & Montreal. I've been seeing Broadway shows, checking out the National Art Gallery, and ballet at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Houston Ballet was amazing, but Ballet West from SLC on the same program was also very nice. Next month I head to AZ and Mexico. In January I had 3 weeks in Mesa visting family and enjoying the warm weather. In Feb I had 3 weeks in Hawaii and a cruise to Mexico. Last summer I spent a month looking at castles and scenery in Europe and a week in NYC. I have had three trips to CA in the last year. I think I'm living the life you are talking about. And yes, I do need some time at home with routine now and then. And I do a little work via email even while I'm gone and I keep a watch on some favorite blogs. But this is pretty good stuff even when I get to do it several times a year!!!
Glad to have you back!!
Glad the trip went well, Beck! :)
JGW: I'm anticipating your California trip as well... I want full details! :)
RON: You're living it! It sounds like "pretty good stuff". I hope to get there one day. I'd like to combine my work with my travels - maybe photography and writing in a new career?
OOSM: Thanks. Glad to be back, I think?
KENGO: It do go well. I really am struggling with how to get back into the groove - moreso than usual.
I mean it "did" go well.
I'm just not sure what to do with this blog anymore... Any suggestions?
"I love to speak with people in different languages"
I'm terrible at languages, on my mission, people would think my companion was the senior because he spoke so much better than me
but still, i was in south america last week on a volunteer team and had extensive opportunity to speak with locals. i loved trying to make myself understood; they loved trying to understand me-- a good time was had by all
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