I Blame it on National Geographic

I've had wanderlust lately.
Going three hours away to Rochester doesn't count as a "vacation" or a trip.
we love to travel and see places, but it's gotten a little more complicated with the kids. I love going all over and seeing new things and landmarks and eating at restaurants and staying in hotels. I like camping and being adventurous and meeting people in other states. I'm glad I've gotten to do it a lot in the last ten years. My family never went anywhere except Montana.
Sometimes though, I see pictures of faraway places, or talk with people who have traveled overseas. I hear abou tfoods they tried and the languages, and riding trains and crazy taxi cab drivers and unbelievable scenery, and I feel sort of sad inside. Because I'll never be a world traveler. I've never left this continent. It shouldn't make me sad, because most people really don't travel far from home.
I blame National Geographic.
My grandpa has been a subscriber since the before the 40's. He has shelves of archives, full of beautiful pictures and scenery and people that only the privilidged photographers have seen. We had a gift subscription of NG when I was a kid, and I'd wait for each issue and then I'd devour it. Even before i could read, I would sit and look them through, page by page, wondering what kinds of places the pictures were taken in, what kind of lives those people lived. And I find myself still doing that today.
Wondering. Wishing. Trying to be content in this 800-square-foot box in the "OK" part of town where cooking and cleaning and supervising preschoolers is all I really do.
Hoping for some day when I'll actually see the ocean.