Questioning Myself

I couldn't think of anything to write about, so I looked online for blog prompts. I thought most of them were dumb, so I decided to make up my own question and answer it. I went with this old standard:

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Truth be told, I'm not much of a traveler. I am a big homebody, and I get easily flustered in unknown places. I'm fairly comfortable if I can speak the language, so I guess maybe my dream trip would be a tour around the United States and Canada.

I actually have never been to Canada. So I think I'd take one of those nice tour buses that takes you all around and makes sure you see the most important stuff. And gets you into the nicest hotels and pre-arranges your meals at the nicest restaurants. But then I would also like my tour bus to give me some relaxation time in the more scenic areas (read: NOT Missouri).

Of course, seeing all of the U.S. and Canada would require several trips, and that wasn't really part of the hypothetical. So if I had to pick, I'd pick Maine. I'd pick Maine because my dad has been to most states, and he says Maine is his favorite. And who doesn't enjoy a good lobster?

Now I will talk about places I have been. I have had one significant international travel experience. It was when my grandma took me to Italy on a two-week tour. It was a dream come true for her, having never been to the country that her father emigrated from. The trip was lovely, we saw it all ... and we fought like a mo-fo about halfway through. Grandma was kind of difficult on the trip. Oh, and one of the people in the tour group died. Right in front of us.

But I guess I'm still grateful for that time with my grandma. She has since passed away, and if nothing else, I really got to know her on that trip.

Most of the rest of my travel experiences involve going to the same places over and over. My mom and stepdad were big on taking us to this camp in the mountains, which had no TV, phones, or computers ... pretty much your idea of hell when you're a teenager. (Well, I guess not the computer part. Computers weren't that big when I was a teenager. But note that nowadays my parents go to the same place and bring a DVD player and a projector. Plus they have laptops because the place now has Wi-Fi.)

My dad and stepmom purchased a house in a beachside community and took us there on vacation some weekends. They live there now. Anyway, my point is, we took good trips, but we went the same places over and over again. And I have never been to the Grand Canyon or Mt. Rushmore or any of those tourist places.

And that is the answer to my question. Sort of.