The other night I dreamt that I was on a plane on my way to Paris. I have always wanted to go to Paris and Italy, but with my health problems, I doubt that I could fly now. So, I've decided that I'm going to have to visit these places as an armchair traveler, or through other people's eyes, photos, blogs, etc.. The week before last, one of my cousins flew to Switzerland, Germany and France for a week. I'm very happy for her, but it just made me realize just how little I've traveled in my life. I've lived in Tennessee all my life, and when I was growing up my parents never took a vacation out of town. They were homebodies, so whenever they had vacation time off from work, we always stayed at home. In fact, my mother used to purposely arranged her vacation time around the time of year that our vegetable garden was coming in, so that she could can her green beans and tomatoes. I never thought too much about it back then, but now as I've gotten older, and I've seen the types of vacations other people take (the beach and out of the country) I thought she must have been out of her mind. She grew up on a farm, so she was never used to having the luxury of just deciding to go out of town. My dad's family was also poor as Job's turkey, so they never traveled either. I guess the not traveling part passed down a generation to me. If you are not used to traveling, you don't miss what you've never had.
It begins to change, though, when you hear people talking about their vacations and trips they've taken. It makes a person kind of envious, in a way. One day I heard someone talking about a place they had visited out of the country and another person said, "Oh, yes, I've been there. It was wonderful! I would love to go back!" I was just thinking as they were talking about it that I would love to be able to go one time, and they were talking about going back.
I did briefly travel to Memphis, TN when I was small to visit my aunt and uncle who lived there. I remember going with some cousins and thinking that it was taking forever to get there. In a typical child's voice, I kept asking, "How much farther?" I really enjoyed it, though. While we were there my cousin drove across a bridge to Mississippi he said so that I could say that I've been to Mississippi. I guess he must have known that I didn't get out of the house much. The other thing that I really wanted to see while I was in Memphis was Graceland, Elvis Presley's home. My uncle told us that he was going to show us where he lived. He said, "We're going to see Elvis Presley's house." Well, I thought we were actually going to see it, you know, go through it? Imagine my surprise when my uncle sped by the house like a bat out of hell and said, "There's Elvis Presley's house." I turned my head just in time to see the gates fly by. In fact, I don't even remember seeing the gates, now that I think about it.
When I got married I finally began to travel. My husband has always enjoyed traveling, and for once I was getting to do the same thing. We've been mostly to the beach, either Panama City Beach, St. Augustine or Myrtle Beach, and we even took a cruise once to Cancun, Mexico. I was able to see Cuba from the ship's deck. We had a bad storm going out, though, and that made the experience miserable for me since I've always had a problem with motion sickness. It was quickly remedied, though, when I went to the ship's doctor and got a shot and some pills to take care of that. Then my husband complained that all I did was sleep. When we finally docked, I was able to crawl out of my stupor and begin to enjoy myself. I guess the pills had kicked in by that time. It was an enjoyable experience, but I will never take a cruise again.
Over the years we have traveled almost every year for a week someplace, but we haven't done that in several years and I'm really missing it. My husband says he wants to go to Myrtle Beach this year in the fall, but we've both become so sedentary that it takes a great effort just to get up and let the cat out. To be honest, I would just as soon stay at home and relax that week. I think all the preparation is what is so daunting. But, now, if my husband we to say, "Come on, honey, we're going to Paris!" Now, that would be a different story altogether! Instead when I mentioned going to Paris, he said, "No, we're not going there. The French don't like Americans". So, there you have it. Armchair traveler.
