Oh, The Places I Must Go

I have travel fever big time.  Going on business trips does that to me.  I got on a plane with one of my executives and started flipping through the airline’s magazine and as always, I ended up on the map page. 

I love maps.  I love the way they make you so open to possibilities.  I try on new locations, new lives and lifestyles the way some women try on nail polish.  I looked at this map and decided on the following:

1.      Sardinia, I have to go there.  And I want a villa there for summering.  Requires getting rich first though. Note to self, get rich please.

2.      Capri.  Another Italian gem.  Like the pants.

3.      Malta, near Italy, it sounds vaguely exotic and oh-so-Middle Eastern.

4.      Casablanca.  Love the notion of Morocco.  The food, the spices, the exotic-ness of it all.  Here’s to you kid.

5.      Egypt.  I need to check out the Great Pyramids, everyone should.

6.      Tripoli.  Once they get their act together and things settle down, it would be like giving the middle finger to the now deceased Kaddafi and his horrible, abusive family. 

7.      Vesuvius.  From a respectful distance, of course.

8.      Syria.  An old, old country with much to offer despite the fact that things are terribly messy right now.  Best to go when things calm down of course, it's a hot mess there right now.

9.      Antarctica.  I know, just to say that I did it.  I only want to go for approximately five minutes but it would be cool to say I’d visited the worlds’ biggest desert and the 7^th continent.  And the cold would give me something major to complain about.

10.  Australia.  Great Barrier Reef and all that.  Plus, Australian guys are so darn nice and flirty.  I don’t get that, at my age I mean, but it’s still really nice.  I read The Thorn Birds.

11.  New Orleans.  I read Interview With a Vampire years ago and I’ve been trying to get to The Big Easy ever since.  Still on my wish list.

12.  Tibet.  The Dali Lama cannot be wrong.

13.  India.  Probably will end up there on business anyway.

14.  South Africa.  I want to see the cheetahs at a favored animal rescue park. 

15.  Vatican.  I need to talk to the Pope about a couple of things.  Having faced Death because of cancer, I have a few questions.

16.  Bali.  Or Fuji or some such very far away tropical island.  I want to disappear into a sandy, warm and salty vapor of contentment.

17.  Lanai, Hawaii.  Same sort of island escapist mentality, I’ve been to most all the other Hawaiian islands already.

18.   Iceland.  I know, I know, not the chicest place on earth and I bet the shopping is not the best but hey, it has the distinction of being the single most volcanically active spot on the planet.  Sits on top of a giant magma chamber, refer to my blog on Wilber the volcano.

19.  Yosemite.  I’ve never been and I should go before it blows up and causes nuclear winter again. Happens every five to ten thousand years apparently.  I am sure I am already late to the game.

20.  An Ashram, likely located in India but not the same as going to India.  I need three months of enlightenment to effort this one.

I have not told my family about any of this. While I figure out how to best drop this particular bomb, please keep all this to yourself.