Where first

I'm torn between New York to visit a friend, the islands of Seattle which is where the book I'm writing is set or Florida to see gators because I've never been and I wanna see gators.

Also I really really really want to see fireflies.  It's on my bucket list so now I have to figure out when and where they are, if the airline goes somewhere close and where to rent a car.

I've just been told that the airline I have free flights on is the equivalent to a greyhound bus in the sky. Two friends turned their noses up and said they'd rather die.  That the difference between people who travel for a vacation and people who travel to travel. I don't care. I'll have a bag full of airplane friendly food, a laptop for movies and I'm five foot three inches and pretty tiny. All airline seats are big enough for me!

I'm also contemplating an RV road trip but that will be with my husband as those thing are too damn big to drive for days on your own. The redwoods I think.

The open road

There is something about crossing the state line that makes my body exhale.  First it exhales and then the excitement kicks in as that line gets further and further away in my rear view mirror.
It's like cutting the cord to home, city and work.  Your suddenly free.  It's psychological of course but it feels as real as the day I packed my bags for New York and left England without looking back.

I have driven up and down the pacific coast many times but each time brings a new town, a new stop in the road.  When I was driving from San Fran to Monterey I stopped in Half Moon Bay.  A small little town with a few moody locals but a crazy little place to buy weird random stuff from,

I spent more time that most might here doing a little research but if you're headed south along the coast from SF stop in and check it out.

Not by plane but by car.

So we just spent a sleepy Wednesday driving the scenic route down to Julian near San Diego.  Its a fun little place with a great bird store, an old gold mine and every restaurant has a massive pie selection.

The bird shop is for those who like myself have feeders in the yard.  This place is crazy old lady heaven.

The shops are a bit kitch but is a fun day just wandering around and eating pie.

That was the only problem with the town.  Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against old people and there were a lot.  But when they're standing in front of me in a pie line taking FOREVER to decided on their goddamn pies in-between Obama bashing and talking politics.  That's my breaking point.  I made some not so subtle comments and noises all of which were lost in the volume of the one man asking the dumbest questions ever....they're pies for god sake!! Just pick a pie!
My mood did not improve when we sat down only to have the same group sit behind us saying grace over their pies!  I know I know each to there own but move it along already.

There were some quaint little places to stay and its a good day trip.

After lunch we stumbled upon a tiny shop with stones, fossils, boulders and crystals.  I was in awe of the huge piece if rock with what looked like forty fossilized fish swimming in a shoal.  As it became clear I wasn't just another tourist wandering in and out of stores (which actual I was,) the woman who was manning the shop start to talk to us.  Before I know it she's telling us about her life growing up in Africa.  About the horrors she saw which is why she sort out the quiet little town of Julian where nothing really happens.  She was taken but my fascination of the fossil and told us about a trip she'd recently taken to Hawaii with her daughters.  They had been swimming when five dolphins had decided they want to play.  She was misted eyed as she enacted one dolphin coming up in front of her inches from her face and just being with her.  She said it was the most amazing experience if her life.  I was blown away that this one simple moment was better than any other moment if what was clearly a long fully live.

If I wasn't a junky for day trips I would never have met her and heard her story.  It one of the reasons I love to travel.

The Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumb is to die for.  Its worth the drive just for that.

My New Year's Gift.

This year (2012) I was given the supreme gift for someone like me who equates her freedom and sense of self by the amount of travel she gets to do.

I'm not kidding when I say my sanity and sense of well being are intrinsically linked to looking back in my rearview mirror or seeing the ground disappearing beneath me.  I realized one day when I decided to take a freeway home I'd never been on before, the 23 and the 118, that there is a leveling of ego when you look out over a never ending sea of mountains.  You feel so small, so insignificant and yet more alive than ever.

So my gift? I was chatting with a friend who a year ago had become a flight attendant I was telling her that I'd made the decision that no matter what, I was going to travel a lot more this year (2012.)  She mentioned her "friends and family discount" which she said I was welcome to use.  Then she started to so say how because she didn't  currentlyhave a significant other she had given that perk to her best friend but she had only used it once last year. Then she had an epiphany and said, "I should make YOU my significant other. It's a perk and I really want it to be used and you're the only person I know who will use it regularly."  I think I said, "Absolutely. When can you sign me up."  She said as her friend only travelled occasionally she could just as easily use the buddy passes she had.  She told me that the change over couldn't happen until the new year but as of January 2012 I'd be good to good.

I was beside myself.  It was hard waiting for the end of the year to come for my name to be added but now it has. I still have to learn just how this will work but it is my plan to go somewhere new in the US and have an adventure at least once a month if not more for as long as I can.

How to travel with out breaking the bank

So let's face it. No matter how great my husband is, it would be tough for anyone heading off to work, to a job that has long hours and is at times draining, while your other half swans off on "another adventure."

Even though he never said I couldn't spend our money on travel I found it hard to justify to myself.  I work as a free lance consultant so I make pretty good money and have a very flexible schedule but it isn't full-time.  However even with my income I still felt a little guilt about traveling as much as I wanted to and tapping into our savings.  Then I came up with one of my brilliant idea.  We had a house keeper for a year who came twice a month.  So in an effort to save some money as well as earn back some money from the mutual account I decided I'd do the house work and pay myself.  It may seem silly but I grew up with the knowledge that you pay your way.  For years in England I made a great salary but I haven't yet matched that here.  So even though all the money is pooled and "ours" I still feel the need to earn it back.

I have a great little travel fund growing and it should cover my plane/road/ferry trip in March.  It will be great heading out on that trip with not just a sense of travel freedom but financial freedom as well.

Right now

Having been married a while now, my husband and I are secure in our married, with each other.  There is trust and knowing and with that surprisingly comes freedom.

He's no longer suspicious when I want to take off on my own.  He knows I'm not off hunting other cities for another man or having some passionate rendezvous with a stranger.  He knows me well enough now to know it is part of who I am.  I am often my most awake when I'm traveling, on an adventure.

We travel more today together than we use to but I also travel alone.  He has no interest turning up in some strange not very exciting city with no plan to just "check it out."  He likes comfort and luxury and don't get me wrong I love those things too but I would rather stay longer somewhere in a cheap place than short in an expensive place.  So now we do the more luxurious places together and I do my cheap getaways on my own. 

The differences

So my husband and I took some road trips to Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and well as trips to Hawaii.

On a trip to Colorado I really began to realized the size of this country.  You can get in a car in the south of England at breakfast and go to bed in the northern most part of the country on the same day.

Driving through California, Utah and Colorado was a trip, literally and figuratively.  First it looks like the moon and it goes on FOREVER!  I couldn't believe we not only hadn't seen water (sea/ocean) but that we weren't going to either.  Not unless we drove for three more days.

I love traveling with my husband but I started to notice something was different from when I travelled alone but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Then I flew up to San Francisco on my own, rented a car and drove down to Monterey to visit one of my best friends who was over from the UK working.  I stopped in Carmel for lunch and to spend some time writing as I was working on a book.  It was then I realized what was missing...people.

When you travel with a companion no one talks to you.  I don't entirely know what it is.  Partly people don't want to interrupt and partly because couples often have that invisible couple forcefield around them. When you travel alone people chat to you, ask you questions, strike up a conversation on some obscure topic.  I don't know whether its because of my English accent but people will tell me the strangest things.  I've even had someone say to me, "I've never told anyone that before."  People ask if they can sit at your table and end up telling you all sorts of things.

None of this happened once I stopped traveling on my own and I missed it.  It's a very entertaining part of travel for me and something that make for a unique experience.

On the road

As I mentioned, even in the UK I loved to bum around.  The best thing I ever did was learn to drive.  Once I had my drivers license I was FREE and that for me is the most exhilarating feeling.  I feel alive in a way I don't get from most other things.

I didn't have much money but always enough for gas and so if I heard of an interesting place, or someone mentioned a great desert they'd had on vacation, I'd make a note and when I was free I'd head off there.

I was based in London but would drive out to Devon, up to Scotland, over to the Isle-of-Wight.  I just couldn't see enough of everything.

I then started back packing around Europe.  I visited France, Spain, Germany, Greece (well the islands,) Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Belgium.  I didn't make it further east because the war broke out and we were strongly advised not to go.  And when it became known of the atrocities done to women I was glad I took the warning.

Then I got the chance to visit New York and from the moment I landed in the snowy city of Manhatten I knew I would have to move countries.

And so I did.