Travel bug

For as long as I can remember, our family has always gone on a trip for summer vacation. Nothing exotic (think Wisconsin on the lake, a cabin in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, Northern Minnesota), but a good time away. Every summer since 6th grade I've gone on some sort of service trip with my church: Rapid City, Quad Cities, then a big leap to Tanzania (though technically it wasn't a service trip...), then to Kentucky with Appalachian Service Project, Tanzania again (I know, awesome, right?), and Milwaukee with Habitat for Humanity. I'm going there again next summer (woot woot), but I'm getting the antsy travel bug now. My list of places to go keeps on getting bigger and bigger: Germany, the U.K., Scandinavia, Spain, Argentina, Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Boundary Waters (and every national park in the U.S.), France (not Paris), India, Iceland, New England and Australia.
It's kind of odd, because if you give me too much time to think, I'll be too afraid to get on a plane, as a fairly new driver I'd rather not be the one behind the wheel, and if you asked me where the money to fund it all would come from I would just stay home and watch "Globe Trekker" on PBS for the rest of my life. So what to do with this? (Suck it up) Yes, there's an idea.
If I went to some of these places, I'd want to see a bit of everything, of course. For example, if I went to England, yes, I'd go see a few things in London--the things you're "supposed" to see, but I'd want to take the road less traveled, not too much tourist stuff. I'd have to do some music geek stuff, but that's my only real requirement. Along with getting my picture taken at King's Cross Station between platforms 9 and 10. I'd also want to watch the Welsh language news because I can't understand how all those consonants can be pronounced. But that's it. Those are my only must-dos.
That's the fun thing about traveling, getting to see what real life is like in a place, hearing how people talk, and meeting those people. I think it would be really cool to go someplace with only the smallest inkling of what's supposed to happen when I get there.
I suppose my time to travel will come soon. It could happen!

First Snow and Robert Frost

I wasn't expecting this much snow today, were you?

Despite the crappy driving conditions, this first snow makes me feel good. I don't know why.
It reminds me of the Robert Frost poem, Walking in the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

To me it always sounded like Frost (or his character) was looking at the snow in wonder, reveling in the solemn beauty of it. But in Now Close The Windows, Frost doesn't care how pretty the snow is and just wants the darn windows shut so the house doesn't freeze.

Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

(first stanza)

And of course, we'll all feel that way eventually, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.