Travel

I met Little Miss Traveler, a mother of two in Lancashire, England who posts holiday diary entries. Her blog has a cool world map.

Did you know how much I love maps?

In my mid twenties, I fulfilled a childhood dream of travelling in Europe. Why would a quiet girl harbor a dream of strapping on a backpack and venturing to places where no one spoke her language?

The blame fully rests on National Geographic magazines.

Every house in the 70’s had stacks of those yellow glossy booklets.

Every Saturday,  the chores of dusting, mopping, scouring, polishing, vacumning and carpet raking of my parents house were mine.   I started in the master room, down the hallways, through the office and bedrooms, guest bath, living and dining rooms.

Those Nat. Geo. yellow stacks lived underneath a console with a metal worked clipper ship atop a polished piece of driftwood.

Did I mention I love clipper ships?

Kneeling on freshly vacumned carpet, intent on dusting the lower shelf and finishing up in the kitchen, I would gather those stacks up…

And spend the next hour flipping through those booklets.

Stories of Bedouin tribes, rainforests in South America, castles of Germany and African villages.  And plenty of maps!

I was hooked. And must have read each one 10 times during those house cleaning years.

The next fifteen years held middle and high school, track team, softball, family vacations, college, part time jobs, friends and relationships.

And then, the plane took off at 12:30pm on a Wednesday.

I had quit my job.

Cut my uptown apartment lease.

Sold, gave away or packed away furniture, clothes, knickknacks and

cashed my savings account into a stack of American Express Travelers Checks.