OBSERVATIONS ON TRAVEL

I recently returned from a solo road trip to the Oregon Coast.  The purpose was to spend time with artists who speak my language and to replenish creative juices.  Actual miles covered in a little more than a week were 1064.  The following is a list of my observations about the trip.

THINGS I ENJOYED:

1. The freedom and opportunity to travel, learn and appreciate

2. The ocean in all its moods colors and weather

3. Spectacular, iridescent sunsets in an unlimited  variety of silvers, blues, lavenders and scarlets

4. Pacific Northwest rain which turns the landscape to a lush and verdant garden

5. Well maintained highways and freeways with rest stops and scenic pull outs and the hard-working people who keep them that way

6. Public bathrooms, often acceptable, and available in stores, restaurants and rest stops

7. Friendly, honest strangers who return a carelessly dropped change purse, smile and share experiences while waiting in line and who don’t make obscene gestures at the driving behaviors of a dufus from out of town

8. Digital cameras with an almost unlimited amount of memory

9. Cell phones and open wifi to keep me connected

10. Coming home to family, friends and a friendly, familiar quiet neighborhood

 THINGS I DIDN’T ENJOY:

1. The freeway system in Portland, Oregon; mostly a parking lot at rush hour, difficult to impossible to navigate in an east-west direction and crazy making for anyone from out of town

2. Sand in places it doesn’t belong

3. No sunrises

4. Pacific Northwest rain which often seems interminable and permanent, making life depressing, dreary and dismal

5. Highway construction, orange barrels and cones, confusing detours and trucks flinging gravel that chips my new windshield

6. Auto-flush toilets which detonate without advanced warning and threaten to suck one down into sewer hell

7. Tourist crowds

8. Tourists with digital cameras and no brains

9. GPS instructions that get me even more lost

10. Coming home to the mundane