All of which is to say that I’m reviewing my “TRIPS” notebook in Evernote as I add some upcoming travels. I’m torn between a few different viewpoints:
- The West coast is huge and varied, why go anywhere else?
- The United States is huge and varied, why go anywhere else?
- Planet Earth is huge and varied, why go anywhere else?
The next trip is to Washington, DC in a few weeks to stand in and get a sense of the place where this country’s officials make decisions about the future. It will be my first time on the East coast, and only the second time I travel out beyond the Rocky Mountains. I expect I’ll mostly look at buildings and monuments, spend time in museums, drink beer at bars around the Capital, read, and ponder.
After that will be a road trip in March along California’s central valley and a revisit of the areas in South-East California that I first visited a decade ago. It was my first time getting to know any part of California outside of Los Angeles. It was as lonesome on those empty highways as it is in the movies that depict them, and I loved it. I’ll enjoy stopping at the local restaurants to pick up some good chatter. The rainy Spring will mean lots of landscapes full of flowers and a tolerable temperature. The best time to visit the desert.
My passport expires this year. It’ll end its service with two stamps: one from a trip to Guadalajara, Jal. in the Summer of 2007 and another from a road trip up to Vancouver Island, BC in the Spring of 2012. I will renew immediately and consider what’s next on planet Earth.