it's time to get goin'

I have a friend the other day saying how her feet are getting itchy and she'd ready to do a bit of traveling. I don't know that I necessarily get itchy feet- I mean I like where I live and never really have any great yen to travel far from home. If I don't see Africa, it'll not be any skin off my nose. The same with South America. And though I'd like to see Tokyo just out of sheer curiosity, if I don't make it I don't make it. But I do have a feeling I'll at least see a little bit of Europe before I 'm dust or ashes.

However, though I don't ever get the craving to roam far from home, my feet get heavy and I want to go for a drive. I want to get the hell out of the valley and head east over the hill where there's sagebrush and junipers and you can actually see something. I love the open country and rolling hills where you can see the geology and natural history exposed to the elements and time. I love the tiny towns and two lanes. And the night skies! You can see stars that in the valley you never realized existed. I grew up looking at those skies and though where we live we get a pretty good look at them, it's still nothing compared to what I could see growing up.

And maybe the want for the highway has more to do with being homesick. I mean, the little house in the country where the missus and I live is home, but in a wierd way it's not our homeland. I feel like an immigrant here and I suspect I always will. And I know once you leave you can never go back home, but in a wierd way that dried-out little county with nothing to offer in the way of a living but everything to offer in environment still feels like home. And it always feels good to be there. Only it's painful sometimes to leave. It's hard to leave the family when you only get to visit them for a few hours and you can see them getting older with each visit. But it's also hard to leave a land that impacted how you view yourself and the world.

I doubt the missus would be up for a road trip, and I can't blame her. I don't think she has the same feeling, or at least as strongly as I do, for that place. And I know I won't be making in runs or pilgrimages on my own. Hopefully I go there at night when I sleep while the cool breezes blow over from the coastal range and into our little hollow in the valley.