Home and Not Home-Where Do You Want to Be?

[Peg Herring]

Thanksgiving is travel time for a lot of us, and it brought up the question in a recent discussion of why we seem to want to be wherever we aren't. When we're home we imagine all the great places we could be, and when we're gone for more than a few days, we picture the idyllic peace of home. So which is best?

It's all a matter of timing. My husband's tolerance for away-from-home time is a bit shorter than mine, but we do pretty well for three weeks on our annual vacation, three days on short trips to visit relatives. After that we both long for our own bed, our own shower, our own meals. If we keep ourselves busy, it's better, but if he gets bored, we're likely to head for home no matter how long we planned to stay.

At home, a lot depends on the weather. If we can get outside and remain active, we're good for months at a time. Only the long Michigan winters make us pack up and go where we can walk without skis, work without parkas, and sightsee without mittens.

Others have more or less tolerance for home/not home. We have friends who sold their home and live on their boat, which is sort of home, but mostly not. We have friends who fly south before the first snowflake hits and stay until all the gray spring-snow is gone. Of course we have other friends who won't leave home for anything, folks who have never slept a night outside their home county.

So at Thanksgiving, when half or more of America is on the roads or in the skies, some of us are happy about it, and some of us are miserable. Home may be where the heart is, but take your heart with you when you travel. You might need it.

[Peg Herring]

Me, too, today, but yesterday? Snow, sleet, stress, and my own Old Ogre at the wheel. Yipe.

[Sue Dawson]

Right where I want to be in my little piece of heaven, the Ogre's Nest. I am just saddened that the Old Ogre (Hubby's screen name) cannot be around to enjoy it.