From the age of about 16, whenever I could, I traveled. All though my late teens and early twenties I went away whenever the opportunity arose. The problem was I kept going back to the same places. I had two close friends in New York so I went there about seven times, an aunt in Boston took me there three or four times. Florida, Montreal, Toronto, Milwaukee and Maine were all places I frequented more than once. When I turned 28 I accepted a full time job. Since then, finding the time and money to take off has not been as easy. (why did I seem to have more cash before I was employed full time...)
I have several dream destinations, the same places as many of you I'm sure, Paris, Australia, Africa, Thailand and London (London actually has a planned date and savings account going). The closest location on my dream list would be Hawaii. My connection to the Islands is skimpy but nonetheless and intense one. An old collection of Hawaii records my parents had when I was a kid began it all. For years we had shelves of these records, many from the K-Tel collection, but no working record player to actually play them on. That did not stop me from taking the records to my room and spending hours listening to my cassettes while studying the art work on the album covers. My parents loved Hawaii and went every second year leaving us kids at home with a angry aunt not used to taking care of anyone but herself. They always brought us home something and the cheapest looking tacky souvenirs became symbols of future adventure.
When I picture Hawaii it is still the vision I had when I was 8 staring at those album covers. I know Hawaii is far more than luaus and grass skirts but I do love how the culture is so heavily impacted by it's location. Hawaii always had me dreaming of what life would be like if we lived somewhere in between the ocean and the land, spending our time between the two worlds but never spending too much time in just one.
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