Oh The Places You’ll ALMOST Go!

It has been my experience that for every place I visit or live, there are a pile of places I’ve almost visited or lived. Especially vacations. When I was working full-time and going to school nights, cruise brochures were jammed in my pocketbook, my desk, and car. For years I debated between the usual tropical cruise and one that went through The Grand Canyon. They were priced about the same, and I really wanted that Grand Canyon rafting one. Never did take either. Despite my grand plans, math has the ability to completely wreck everything. Know what I mean? And don’t even get me started on what reality can do to you. The following is a list of places I almost went, prepare to be envious, I have an amazing almost life.

·         Egypt – To see the pyramids. I still have all the books. This one was put on the back burner for something like Six Flags because I was twelve.

·         Carolina – I was going to move there. Family lives there and I spent summers there, and decided to head south. Somehow, for reasons which are still unclear, I ended up in Boston. I know, right?

·         The Marshall Islands. They’re in the South Pacific, and I was going to go live there and ride my bike everywhere. It did not work out because Dear Hubby said something like, ‘no’. Hate when he does that. I remained in Boston where you cannot ride your bike to work, not if you want to live.

·         Colorado – to live in the mountains. I overshot and ended up in Texas.

·         Virginia – to live. The job was lined up, but nobody wanted my house in Texas. So fine, I stayed in Texas.

·         Alice Springs, Australia. It’s in The Outback. The reason we didn’t move to Alice Springs is complicated, we were doing the paperwork. I was trying to figure out how to buy three years worth of toilet paper to ship – apparently you have to bring your own. The reason I didn’t go is a long story that involves diphtheria and implied death threats from my in-laws. Though I never have let the latter stop me. My BFF has still not fully recovered from this disappointment. She was already booking her trip to come visit. The layover was in Hawaii. She still tears up. It’s probably all for the best. It isn’t likely I’d have ever gotten the toilet paper calculation right.

·         Los Angeles. Apparently the fishing isn’t so good there.

·         A month long trip to Scotland. It was actually a research trip for a novel I’m writing. The muse moved the novel location to Iceland. I cried for two days, but heartlessly she wouldn’t budge. So now the trip has been moved to Iceland. Nobody can afford to go there for an entire month, not even the people who live there. So I’ll have to write faster. Still, the Scotland trip is off.

·         Greece. This is the latest place I’m not going to. Reality just stomped all over me last night. It was a dual trip, both writer’s retreat AND book research trip. Icelandair actually has a deal going on where you can book a trip through Iceland for no additional cost to your ticket. So I was flying New York to Athens via Iceland. Not to mention Denmark and possibly Rome as stopovers. The potential for adventure was high. If all those flights were on time, I’d eat my head. Alas my conversion from dollars to kronas and euros was somewhat skewed and reality just had its way with me yet again. I hate that.

And those are some of the awesomely cool places I’ve almost gone to. Pretty heady stuff, huh? Tell me about the wonderful places you’ve almost visited, I’d love to hear about it.