"Travel"

I made this map when someone insisted I’d like nothing more than creating free art, in her words “for your portfolio!” Sure. Thanks. Never mind the closet full of good stuff I made for paying customers that I can’t fit in my portfolio, or that I repeatedly said “NO!” I caved because I was pretty sure she’d hound me into the afterlife if I didn’t give in. Aside from saying “never again!” and skipping over the part where I wasn’t told they cancelled the project until after it was completed, or that she never apologized…

Okay, I had a map and thought about places I’ve been and those maps I’ve seen on the backs of RVs. I don’t know if people on other continents keep maps on the backs of their RVs, or even if they have RVs, but some people in America do. They’re usually old people with enough money to have an RV and enough leisure time to fill in a map, which for the record, I’ve never had enough of either of those things at the same time to indulge in such things.

I started coloring in states where I’ve been. I think I’ve covered a lot of ground for a dedicated homebody. I haven’t been to Texas yet, but I’m going this fall, so I pre-colored it in too. I even did international travel because I went to the Bahamas and covered a lot of ground in Canada, but Canada doesn’t feel very international except Quebec.

While much of Canada is extraordinarily beautiful, that circle bar up there at the top is a place nobody in their right mind wants to go. It’s freezing in August. We should leave it to the bears. I put more circle bars at other places I’m never willingly going to go to again. I think you can tell my ranking system is east of the Mississippi and below the Arctic Circle.

I realize my rating system may not suit everyone’s tastes. At a truckstop halfway between Cleveland and Indianapolis I met a woman traveling in the opposite direction. She absolutely hated Cleveland. Just goes to show some people are nuts, but I suppose home is where your heart is. She thought I was nuts when I said I hated Indianapolis. We suggested trading husbands so we could each live where we wanted to live. Who knows? Maybe I’d still be married if I had her husband instead?

The husband I kept for the time and one of my brothers rhapsodized over the “big skies” in all those big rectangle states while I vowed never to return to a place with a “Mad Woman’s Creek” every couple hundred miles or so. There was a reason those women were mad. Too much sky, not enough trees, and no water anywhere. Give those states to the bears too.

I claimed the whole state or province for every place where I’ve put my feet or seen out of a car window, and then I prettied up my map some. I didn’t count seeing the Grand Canyon out of the plane window because that seemed like cheating. Someday I’ll get over the big water and see Europe. There are a lot of paintings to see in person on my bucket list.

Where have you been, and where do you want to go? What would your map look like, and what places do you think I should reconsider?