mine is a desire for internal geographies

Call me what you will, but I really don't have a desire for international travel.  This may change, yes, but for now, this has been my experience.  With any sort of public announcement like this, I can already hear the gasps.  Who doesn't want to see the world?  After all, don't we owe it to ourselves and others to broaden our perspectives and experiences?

I crave open spaces.  I take delight in the quiet.  I feel most alive when I am communing with nature.  And simplicity is very important to me.  These experiences fuel my spirit.

I LOVE road trips.  My husband and I have taken so many over the course of our lives together (I remember reading Homer's Odyssey out loud to one another during one summer behind the wheel).  Now that we live in the midwest, we both desire mountain, ocean or desert landscapes so this is the direction with which we point our car (or the rental).

Although, who am I kidding?  What other landscape is there?  Ahhhh....a cityscape, yes.   This is appealing for a day or so and after that, I am ready for my open spaces once again.

When I travel I either want to arrive at a destination where the natural world is the backdrop, where I can plant myself for several days at a time and just absorb OR I want to be traveling in a car, preferably on back roads, meandering my way through unexpected small places, stopping all along the way.

When the outside world is too visually over stimulating for too long, I am unable to hear my inner voice.  When I can't hear my inner voice, I lose my compass.

I am constantly thinking.  There is a whole world available to me inside myself.  Although I've been traveling this world for years, it's a well that never tires or becomes dry.  It only continues to motivate and inspire me.  In contrast, the thought of traveling internationally (taking planes, trains, buses, being surrounded by people and noise, having to transfer from here to there and back again) is exhausting and depleting for me.  I know myself well enough that the time it takes to recover from these self imposed events (there are enough that are out of my control and just happen on a daily basis), the more the wind is taken directly out of my sail.

Yesterday, I took myself on a road trip.  We usually try to incorporate one day trip a week into our summer schedules.  We've already camped along the shores of Lake Superior and will do so at least four more times before the end of September.  At the end of July, we are planning on traveling the mountain (and prairie) landscapes of Montana.  For the meantime, I remain content, right here, wandering the open spaces of my internal geographies.

As a footnote, I realize there is room for an argument in my story here.  For instance, why can't I travel internationally to a place where I won't be overstimulated?  This travel story is only the tip of my iceberg.  And yes, staying in a yurt in the open spaces of Mongolia does sound a little appealing but...

Do I fly?  OF COURSE.  Usually in hopes of reaching a quiet destination, however, and one that isn't in the spotlight.  A few years ago, my husband and I flew to Denver and then rented a car and drove the back roads of New Mexico and Texas.