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?