"Whatcha think Ed?"

May was our return home month, having spent much of the winter traveling in the SW.   Yet, here I am, after only two months at home, feeling my feet itch.  What is it about being on the road that is so captivating? And conversely what is it that turns me into a homing pigeon when I’ve been gone for a few months?  Back and forth goes my head and heart.  I want to be home; I want to be on the road; I want to be home; I want to be on the road, and on and on.  One might suggest the word malcontent as fitting.   I prefer, however, to think of myself as a homebody with a wandering gene.  Or am I a wanderer with a homebody gene?  Doesn’t matter.  I love both conditions and yearn for one and then the other.

Right now I might be particularly susceptible to wanting to be on the road because Brad and Ed and Benton are out and about in Thistle, as Brad hikes for GreenTrail Maps in the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon.  Both Yessi and I are home working to fulfill prior commitments.   For me this week it’s Airbnb and jury duty.  Next week's the same. Yessi is honoring  her obligations to bookkeeping and gardening jobs.   So here we are missing our guys and wishing we were traveling too.

When my feet itch I turn to my favorite travel blogs.   Just yesterday I saw this posting about a woman traveling by horseback.  She began in 2005 and has traveled 28,000 miles crisscrossing the U.S. and Canada, with no intention of stopping.  What is it about these wild schemes that captures my imagination?  “Whatcha think Ed?   We could sell Thistle and buy two horses?”   

roadslesstraveled 

Or there’s the biking thing too.  Not like we do it now, with our bikes being carried on Thistle for riding from time-to-time.  No.  I'm talking world-wide self-supported touring.  This couple has biked Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire into Nova Scotia and the Canadian Rockies putting 18,000 miles on their bikes.  They have also toured Italy, plus both the north and south islands of New Zealand.   Sixty miles a day is their commitment.  

Do I dare say it?   “Whatcha think Ed?”

roadslesstraveled 

Or backpacking way into the wilderness…with goats?  I can’t hike any more, but if I could, goats look like fun and useful companions.  

When we were on the Oregon coast this past winter we met a woman who was RVing with two goats and a dog.  She was traveling in an old and shabby vintage RV. The goats, with very long horns, had a stable in the back separated from her living quarters with a picket fence.  They had no back exit.  It was definitely a live together setup.  When she gave me a tour the odor was ripe.   Her plan was to move from one animal rescue spot to another, volunteering along the way.    I'm still kicking myself for not getting a photo and her contact information.

  

The Goat Blog  

Of course, you know how I love donkeys.  We could pack and ride into wonderfully marvelous places with donkeys.     Hum?   That would show that nasty ankle of mine!

Actually we have deep affection for Thistle, and it is challenging enough at times, but I do wish we’d begun adventuring at a younger age so we could be adding adventure-after-adventure to our Thistle Adventure.    I guess we all collect something.  I’ve been able to simplify our lives of stuff, weeding out continuously.  But my imagination, nope, not so much.  My head is jammed with a myriad of ways to experience the world.   

And this is why I love blogs!  I travel along with Leslie and Al in their Travels with HaRVy.  I follow the roadlesstraveled, Bumfuzzle, The Goat and Hiking Frogs. Other blogs come and go.  Spudnik Goes was one that ended as did the 180 Day Road Trip, but while they were active I enjoyed many an hour of armchair travel, dreaming dreams of adventure. 

Then there's boating!   

"Whatcha think Ed?"

~~~


"I bellieve that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great
teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering
instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do."

~ Kay Redfield Jamison