Travel? What travel?

So…this is supposed to be a blog about travel, right?  I mean, it says it in the title and everything.  Sure, I've been blogging about traveling through mid-life in a more theoretical sense, but I can hear everyone either yawning and clicking away from this site to see pictures of ugly cats or cute babies, or frowning and asking their respective computer screens, where’s the damn travel story?!  Well…travel plans are afoot, my friends.  That’s your official teaser.

My son’s spring break is just around the corner, and someone just asked me if we were going anywhere.  Not this year, I sighed.  But I began to reminisce about the two spring break trips he and I took together—last year to Washington, D.C., and the year before to Oaxaca, Mexico.  Just yesterday he was saying how wonderful those trips were.  So while you wait for our next travel adventure to unfold, the next couple of entries will bring you a little look back on our past mother-son travel adventures. 

But I leave you for now…with the first hint of our travel plans…

Behold! Spring!

Spring is finally in the air.  I can see it in the back yard—slowly transforming from snowy backdrop to oozy, swampy, dog-poop-filled backwater.  I can hear it in the air—birds chirping, and the neighbors ditching work or classes to drink on the back patio on a Friday afternoon.  I can smell it, too, from the scent of clean dirt to the dour smell of rotting compost.  The dog is starting to shed her baby coat, and the child is shedding his puffy jacket.  My shoulders are starting to relax from six months of tensing against the cold, and my feet are itching to walk my erstwhile three-times-weekly path, a loop to downtown past the bars and restaurants and bakeries and coffee shops and churches and stately old homes and my son’s school.  Soon the brown and grey will be replaced with green.  There will be lawns to mow, grasses and vines to trim, a garden plot to dig up, and seeds to plant.  The sounds of construction, road repair, Harley-Davidsons, car stereos blaring, children playing and weed whackers will fill the air.  Come quickly, Spring!  How we’ve missed you!