Don’t you all remember the lesson we learned when we watched The Wizard of Oz? There’s no place like home (and by “home” I mean these great United States of America). There is this pervasive notion that you are not evolved, cool, educated, cultured, intelligent or open-minded if you don’t struggle to contain your wanderlust to travel the globe each and every day.
We have an absolutely beautiful, diverse, amazing country folks. Really. You don’t have to go across the ocean to see something beautiful. We have oceans, glaciers, dormant volcanoes, mountains, lakes (Great Lakes in fact), rivers (The Mighty Mississippi among others), valleys, deserts, cities, flatlands, badlands, wine country, huge redwoods, cacti, cowboys and Indians, country mice and city mice. And other than Miami, everyone speaks English.
As kids, my family took a vacation every year. We traveled all over this country. Mostly by car, once or twice by airplane, and we saw most of the country. I certainly didn’t think it was the bee’s knees at the time. It just was. There were some trips I remember being more excited about than others (spending a week at a “dude ranch” in Colorado, Disney Land, Disney World, first trip on an airplane – one of the “new” DC-10 Pub Planes, I remember), but in the end, they were all memorable and wonderful experiences. I didn’t know how lucky I was to have had such a wonderful opportunity to see this country. One of the best vacations we took was when we drove to Framingham, Massachusetts to visit some old friends of my parents. They had 4 children who flanked my brother’s and my ages and we stayed at their house. We went into Boston and to some horrible beach where the water was freezing and the big, nasty, evil, green-headed flies swarmed like – well, like flies, and tore chunks of our bare flesh from our bones until we bled . . . oh. Well, not quite, but they bit us. A lot. We were supposed to leave after a week and go on to New York or some other exotic destination (the plans were never fully clear to me), but my dad got bit by some other nasty, evil bug and he suffered some sort of staph infection in his leg that rendered him unable to travel, so we stayed another week or ten days with our friends. During that time, I rode a bike that was much too big for me and upon turning a corner with too much road dirt and gravel, the front wheel skidded out from under the bike and I wiped out, lodging a stone in my knee. I still sport the scar. By the time we all piled back in our car to pull out of the driveway and head back home to Illinois, every one of us was crying.
And that vacation was in Framingham, Massachusetts! Not exotic Pompeii or the Fiji Islands or Morocco or the hills of Scotland (are there hills in Scotland – or is it the hills of Ireland? Whatever). And when we were in Framingham, Massachusetts, for the most part we stayed in Framingham, Massachusetts, at the house of some friends. Best childhood vacation I can remember. I’m not suggesting everyone pack up and vacation in Framingham, Massachusetts. I swear I’m not.
And I’m honestly not knocking those people who feel they have to see the world, really. I think what bothers me the most is this. So many of these people (and you know who you are) who just “must see the world” and who just “have to see Ireland/Scotland/Greece/Australia/South Africa/Brazil/Thailand/London/France (okay, I’d like to see France cuz the food rocks)/Italy”: have never seen another part of this fabulous country outside of their home state, New York City and Florida. And if you’re saying “Of course I have. We drove from [fill in the blank] to Disney World when the kids were 6 and/or Aunt Edna and Uncle Bill live in New Jersey and we go to their house for Thanksgiving every year – God Bless Our Souls” – then it doesn’t count!
I know there’s a whole world out there. And I think it’s magnificent that if you want to have breakfast in Bulgaria, lunch in Lithuania or dinner in Denmark, you CAN! That is admittedly very cool. I think that perhaps the fact that this world has gotten so small and accessible is a double-edged sword. There is more to experience for sure, but there are down sides too. The internet has made our world so small that we can meet and fall in love with people halfway around the world and THEN have to figure out how to be together. Families don’t ever live in the same towns anymore. “The grass is always greener on the side of the [pond]” has permeated our perspective.
For me, traveling is not the easiest thing to do these days – and I’m way, way past the days of being able to carry everything I need in a well-worn backpack. It’s certainly not the most relaxing way to spend my time. It’s stressful to deal with making flights on time and passing through security and customs and communicating with cab drivers in foreign languages to get where you need to go. And the idea of having to figure out how to ask “Where may I urinate?” in Albanian, Bengali, Laotian or Urdu does not a vacation make. Any day I have to click my tongue to communicate “I don’t eat monkey brains for breakfast” is not a restful day of vacation for me.
I guess I’ve worked really hard, for a really long time to find, create, maintain and love a place I can call home. And I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of seeing more of my own home country. I hope I’m not a dying breed.
So, go travelers! And enjoy your trips. Be safe and enjoy and please send me a postcard. And if you find you want to “get away” from your own personal rat race, but don’t have the time or resources to make it to the other side of the globe, I hope you’ll give the good, ol’ US of A a chance.
Evolution Happens . . . 