Daddy's Christmas Angel

Friday, August 30, 2013

Longing to Travel

On a recent trip, I met a young lady who confided, "I've never been out of the state of Arizona." I felt a little heart tug because she reminded me of myself when I was about her age. During my childhood we would visit aunts and uncles who lived in towns and in the country not too far away. While I enjoyed playing with my cousins, I still longed to go somewhere--to journey far away.

"Sunset Anywhere" ©Mary Montague Sikes
I remember a little book named Journeys Near and Far. It told stories of places with exotic towers and buildings. Those tales took me to distant places I could only dream of visiting. They made me create little stories about my adventures inside my imagination.

Sometimes on nice summer days, I would lie on my back in the grass and stare up at the clouds. I would imagine what it would be like to travel above those clouds in one of the shiny aircraft that sometimes flew overhead. I wondered what might lie hidden inside those clouds. I wondered if people inside those airplanes could see things drifting in the clouds. After all, I saw those fluffy puffs of cotton only from below and their shapes were forever changing. I made up little stories about the clouds.

"Storm Clouds" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Even now the clouds intrigue me. When I have a window seat in an airplane, I keep a camera close by and take many pictures of the ever-changing cloud formations. It surprises me how many people pull down the window shades and never look out.

I still long to travel and usually have a special destination as a setting for a novel.

What about you? Do you long to travel places you've never been? Where?

2 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

As a military brat, I lived in almost a dozen different states and countries by the time I was eighteen.
I still want to go to New Zealand and visit all the places they filmed LOTR.

Notes Along the Way with Mary Montague Sikes said...

New Zealand is supposed to be beautiful, Alex. I'd like to go there and to Australia. What an education to live in so many different places!