Where are you going today? Where will your journey take you?
The word ‘journey’ is related to the word ‘journal.’ Both of them come from the Latin ‘diurnus,’ daily. A journey used to mean a day’s travel or work.
So, where have I been today? All over the world.
In a day I can see what the Gulf of Mexico looks like today, read email from my son in Japan, share my short story with people in Australia and Africa, and buy soap from Turkey.
I can go back in time, looking up my family’s genealogy or finding out who discovered radio waves. I can travel forward in time, reading what the stock market might look like tomorrow, or what schools might look like in a decade. In a day, I can see and learn a lot.
I am just old enough that all of this still amazes me. I will never forget when I got my first modem hooked up and found my way onto the internet. At that time there was not so much to see in cyberspace, but the idea of talking with people from all around the world without ever meeting them was intriguing.
But none of these daily journeys can compare to the real thing. I love getting ready to go on a trip.
Well, part of me hates it. I don’t like airports. I don’t like packing. And I don’t like waiting. All of these are necessary parts of travel these days.
Some of my best summer memories are of driving a minivan on I-70 through the middle of Kansas in August (temp = 103) with my two sons playing in the back seat. Though my kids are grown, I still like road trips. It doesn’t feel like summer if we don’t drive somewhere.
And even though that last 100 miles feels like a thousand, even though there are suitcases to unpack, and laundry to do, even though the car smells like MacDonald’s and there is a gummy worm somewhere under my seat – in spite of everything, I’ve had a good time.
We raised our sons to be travelers. When they were still toddlers, we drove across the country –days on the road, looking for motels with swimming pools, grateful that there’s a MacDonald’s at virtually every exit on most interstates, truck stops in the middle of the night, buying magnets of each state we passed through for the refrigerator at home, keeping track of license plates, trying to catch all fifty states in one trip.
We’ve been lost so many times that nobody gets mad anymore. It’s just part of the experience — the wrong turns, the missed signs, the highway construction, the inexplicable traffic jams. Books on CD are wonderful things.
There is no comparison between a virtual view of the world and a real view, however limited. Granted, on Google Earth I can see places I will never go. But being somewhere instantly isn’t half as much fun as making the journey. Gummy worms and all.