My favorite destination

Life is one beautiful trip

My favorite destination: home. I am so excited to drive down the road to our house. The old live oaks, with the Spanish moss dripping from them form a living tunnel. The sunlight plays hide and go seek as it peeks through the branches. The neighbors are out teaching their son to ride his new bike. My heart is here in Charleston with the heat and the humidity, the fault line, the floods and the alligators, and the sharks. And Griffin and Reagan. And all the boys who pull up a stool to the kitchen island and say, "Ooh, you made biscuits!"

No time to ease back into my life. No time to decompress with a big freelance project in my pocket and a hot deadline. I am working through the weekend. A small price to pay for the lifestyle I enjoy. 

I may be home again, but the trip is not over. I look at the last few weeks as The American Sampler. A dry run for more trips. The breakdown in Gallup threw a monkey wrench in the works, and I just didn't feel like backtracking to California after that. Twice across the Mojave in one week is enough for me, thank you. I got a feel for the type of places I like, what I can skip the next time, and what I'm still longing to see. I'm back on the road in about two weeks to house swap with friends. And I heard about a lady in Virginia who might need a farm-sitter in November. That could be fun.

On the next long trip I will be taking the northerly route out to California and driving down the coast instead of up.

In the meantime, I'm eager to do more camping. There are beautiful places here in South Carolina, and I still need to get to Mt. Cheaha in Alabama. The weather here is more forgiving than in my former home, Maryland, so there is a lot of time left in the season. Plus, maybe the bugs won't be so bad. That's me being the eternal optimist.

Find me a beautiful place to wake up in the morning. 

Life is so beautiful. Of course there is a lot of tragedy in the world, and many people ask if the human condition is worse than it ever has been. I don't believe so. Humans are no less moral and no more cruel than previous generations.There are just more of us, faster means of communication, and more ways to cause each other pain. 

We need to remember that this life is a gift. To focus only on the ugly and the awful and the horrific news stories is to ignore the gift. There is so much beauty in the world. So many experiences to have, people to meet, food to taste, places to see, sunrises to watch, oceans to swim, books to read, babies to kiss, dogs to slobber on us, hugs to envelop us. 

You don't need to drive coast to coast to find beauty and joy, but I do recommend looking for it today. Whatever it is you want to do, whether it is traveling, learning to play the guitar, changing your career – take steps toward that today. Don't wait another day to start living. It's too easy, but too true to say you might not have a tomorrow. 

Those of you who know me will suspect that this attitude is fueled by losing my beloved Darryl, and you are absolutely right. In 2011, he took what he called, "the trip of a lifetime" riding out west on his Harley. I was with him for part of his adventure and am forever grateful for one spectacular day riding across Montana. The air was cool and the sun was high in the sky. Not one man-made thing in sight for miles and miles. No people either. Just the two of us. He said it was the happiest day of his life.

my rider in the sky
This was a moment of our perfect happiness.

We made a big circle that day, leaving from South Dakota, riding into Wyoming, up through the corner of Montana, then back to Deadwood. On the return trip that afternoon, we could see a storm coming and calculated we might get ahead of it. With every mile, the black clouds raced closer to cross our path. The winds grew so strong, Darryl could barely keep the bike upright. The rain stung like needles. There was no place to pull over, no bridges to shelter under, a steep drop off the shoulderless road. I held onto Darryl tight with my right arm, and with my left hand, held the shield of his helmet in place as the wind kept ripping the snaps open. The storm passed in about 35 minutes, and we were finally able to pull over at a visitor center. We climbed off the bike, drenched, exhausted, and exhilarated. We were followed by other riders exiting the road, all of us silently shaking our heads and smiling. "Can you believe that?" we seemed to convey to each other. 

He was home for one week before he had the accident that took his life. It was a sunny, dry day, and he was just five miles from home. This time he rode alone, and my arms weren't wrapped around him.

All that rain inspired the passion vine.

There is no right time to take off on an adventure. There is no perfect time. You will never have enough vacation, or enough money, or a complete lack of commitments. Go anyway. This was probably the absolute worst time for me to go on a trip. I've recently been laid off. I'm recovering from surgery, my income has dropped, and expenses have risen. But I went anyway. And what do you know? The earth did not crash into the sun while I was gone. Granted there was a flood in my hometown, but I came back to a dry house, and a scene from Jumanji on my back porch with vines growing through the door. 

Nothing really changed while I was gone – except me.