December 16 - Viaje (Trip)

Where did you travel this year? What was your best trip?

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

~Herman Melville

I was going to skip this reverb11 prompt because I don't travel. My only vacation this year was the weekend trip to the Wanderlust Festival in Vermont, which was a two hour drive from home. And I've blogged about Wanderlust ad nauseum, so I'll spare you more.

To be fair, I live in a place that people travel to. I don't have to pack my bags to go to the lake. Or to the mountains. I can do everything I like to do within a few miles of my front door. I don't fight traffic and teaching yoga isn't really a high-stress job. I have nothing to take a vacation from.

It's not that I wouldn't like to see new places. It's just not in the cards right now. And that's okay.

Sometimes the best trips last for hours instead of weeks. Sitting in the passenger seat while my teenage daughter negotiated a highway on-ramp for the first time, on our way to visit a college she was considering, and finding music on her iPod we both liked, made a few hours in the car memorable. The next time my daughter and I travel together she'll be moving into a dorm room.

Part of the adventure of hiking with my son this past summer was driving around, trying to find the trailheads. We were less than an hour from home, but we explored many back roads and got to meet many people when we gave up and asked for directions.


The best trip with my husband was into the backyard to recline in the lawn chairs and look up at the stars in the big Adirondack sky. Someday I may travel the world, but there is no truer place than next to my soul mate.