Travel

I've been feeling a little wrung out lately. Tired, uncentered. I thought maybe my seasonal affective disorder was hitting me earlier since I moved four hours north and a little bit east. Then I took a look at my calendar. Since I moved to Boston thirteen weeks ago, I've been out of town six weekends. I've had visitors three weekends. One weekend I had to attend an all-weekend work meeting here. That leaves exactly three weekends to settle into my new home and my new city, two of which were the second and third weekends in September and one of which was last weekend. Tomorrow I'm heading to St. Louis for a conference, next weekend I'm going down to DC for one of my favorite days of the year (Pre-Thanksgiving!), and then later that next week my parents and Dave's parents arrive at our place for Thanksgiving. Whew! I'm sorry if you wanted to come visit before the holidays, but we are not hosting anyone the first two weekends in December, because I. need. a. break.*

On the upside, reviewing that insane schedule reminded me that this year I've traveled more than I have since college, if not more than I ever have in one year. Since January, I've been to Arkansas, California, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts (Western and Boston), New York (City and Upstate), New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington DC (four times, including twice in one week)! Before the end of the year, I'll go to Missouri, Washington DC, and Western MA. And that's just counting the places where I spent at least a night. I got to see several cities I've never seen before: Little Rock, Bar Harbor, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Alexandria.

I've already started thinking about the new countries I'm hoping to go to next year (Thailand, Germany, Scotland, England), as well as the visits to friends and family, and work trips, I'm hoping to make to Seattle, Portland (OR), New York City, Vermont, Kentucky, South Carolina, Washington DC, and who knows where else!

*Which is absolutely not to suggest that I don't love seeing everyone who comes to visit, because I do, and you should definitely come see us, just after mid-December, and it's also not to suggest that I haven't had a great time visiting you on my personal travels, because I have, but I just need two weekends in a row to chill out.

I'd also like to note that I would not have remembered all these trips (all the work ones blend together after awhile) if I didn't have my calendar and my Flickr stream to remind me, especially my set of hotel pictures.