The Fidgety Pilgrim

"For my part I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move."  -Robert Louis Stevenson

This may sound strange, but the only way I can stay grounded is to travel.  Travel is a necessity in my life, like fresh air and strong coffee.  I have come to believe that I am addicted to travel the way others are addicted to whiskey, or crack cocaine, or Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream.  I get the shakes if I go longer than three months without seeing the inside of an airport.  


Had I been born in another time or place, I might have been a gypsy, or a bedouin.  I might have lived in one of the American Indian tribes, like the Hopi, that shifted locations according to the seasons.  I might have been Meriweather Lewis, or Magellan, or any of a thousand others who were lucky enough to explore territory that was as yet untrampled by the masses.


I spent much of last year, 2010, traversing the country.  For most of those miles I was looking out from behind the wheel of my well-worn and trusty Jeep Wrangler.  The rest of the time I was sitting on airplanes.  All of my trips took me from my current home base in Central Illinois to the western half of the United States:  Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico.  I'm a sucker for the West.


I logged more than 20,000 miles on my vehicle between mid-February and late December of 2010.  That's excessive, even for me.  Yet the more I traveled, the longer I was on the road, the more I wished to stay on the road.