NJ-9, KY-9, IL-7, DC-6, AZ-5, WA-5, LA-3, NB-3, FL-3, VA-1, NY-1, TX-1, AR-1My travels in 2005 included 14 states on 54 separate trips. I flew a total of 142 airline segments accumulating 170,400 air miles. Assuming each flight is 90 minutes, I spent 213 hours in the air alone which is the equivalent of more than five work weeks. This does not account for an equal amount of time sitting in airports. I decided not to calculate the time spent on flight delays over and above the airport time.
I slept in 31 different hotels with 78 overnight stays. There was a total of 106 days on the road which included 11 one day trips. A one day trip is classified as getting up before dawn, flying to a location, working all day and returning home around midnight. For some people I meet on the road this schedule is a walk in the park. I can’t come close to understanding how someone can spend over 200 days on the road and maintain sanity.
A restricted work load and general burn-out has allowed me to pull myself out of the game for awhile. I have only one trip scheduled for January. However, I’m struggling with breaking the cycle. The urgency which fueled me into hype drive is gone and it feels like I’m breaking an addiction. In a perfect world I would have picked a different season than winter to come into pit row. I find myself at a loss on how to conquer boredom. My mind is numb and clouded. There is a pending sense of being trapped like a prisoner. I’m constantly looking out the window expecting the view to change like it has every other day for the past 15 years. Perpetual motion has turned out to be its own drug, always providing the next new experience for the senses. Have I crossed the point of no return? Has wanderlust forever ruined me, like a habitual drug addict that forever fails at recovery?
I come by it honestly. My great aunt gave it to me. She was a Victorian spinster who saved every cent she could to travel the world. Travel log photography was her hobby. As a member of the Eastern Star, she would provide slide shows of her travels to the chapter. She was meticulous at traveling, noting every Cathedral’s name, the date it was built, the festival of local customs and always capturing the essence of the culture. She kept a small steno pad on each trip recording each setting of the camera on every exposure. Upon returning home she would transcribe this plethora of detail on each slide in the most delicate script. I recall her spending hours huddled over a light table humming as she catalogued her life. She had come to grips with the loneliness of perpetual motion, learning to find comfort in keeping track.
When she was preparing for a slide show at the Eastern Star, she would pull all the kids into the darkened room to practice her scripted slide show. This is where it began for me. I spent untold hours as a small kid seeing the world in vivid color as large as life projected on a huge screen. Then the stories would begin describing her journey. I watched the Lipizzan Stallions perform in Vienna and I could tell you the 400 year old tradition had survived Napoleon's advances and two world wars. I watched the sugar cane harvest in Hawaii and could tell you each step of the refining process. I watched the Military Tattoo on the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade in Scotland. I dreamed of all these places I would see.
I have yet to come close to her travel experiences. She traveled every state in the nation, every island in the Caribbean, every nation in South America, every continent of the world except Antarctica. She traveled every country in Europe before World War II, and then traveled every country again after the war. Knowing it was her last trip, at the age of 92 in extremely frail health she went to Egypt to float down the Nile.
I am now custodian of her legacy. I maintain her photographic collection of the world with all the handwritten notes. The collection of over 100,000 slides was given to me, because she knew that I was the one to be stricken. In my own travels I have amassed probably 40,000 photographs. It was my destiny.
What is difficult is building relationships and friends when moving at such a rate for extended periods of time. You get to observe the world insulated from social interaction. This social framework provides the safety net when you stop traveling. Friends provide meaningful distractions from daily routines. They provide an opportunity to share experiences and gain feedback. They point out that you are no bigger than what you are. Without this social framework, daily routine becomes as intellectually stimulating as sitting in an airport. This could be fueling my restlessness?
This is where I come to a conclusion and wrap it up into a meaningful message that will guide me. Unfortunately, the issued is unresolved. I cannot travel at the rate I have been and I can’t stop traveling because it’s suffocating to sit and stare out the window. I can’t help but think the lure of the drug is to powerful after all these years. I know from personal experience that Florida is pretty nice this time of year. Plus what else am I going to do with all those frequent flyer miles? Just another case of damaged goods.
Listen to be baby
So it’s understood
This running around life
Ain’t doing me no good
I get so tired
So tired of paying dues
But there seems no way around it
No end to runnin’ blue
But I like to have my fun
I like to run around
And I ain’t no stranger
In nobody’s town
I get so tired
So tired of changing views
And there ain’t no way around it
No way around the runnin’ blue
Now this runnin’ around life
Might seem nice and easy
But when your blowing with the wind
Sometimes it gets real breezy
I get so tired
Like I was born to lose
And there ain’t no way around it
No way around the runnin’ blue
Got no holes in my pockets
Got no holes in my shoes
But I don’t know if I’m leaving Detroit
Or coming into to Baton Rouge
I get so tired
So tired of changing views
And there ain’t no way around it
No way around the runnin’ blue
Left my billfold at the airport
Suitcase on the train
Now I can’t find my umbrella
And it sure looks like rain
I get so tired
So tired of playing the blues
And the road don’t get no shorter
Runnin’ around the runnin’ blue
Boz Scaggs
