There's No Place Like Home...Sometimes

Never in my life would I have expected to travel as much as I have in the last fifteen years. I used to be extremely content to just hang out at home, enjoying sunsets and the slow, constant rhythm of life as it beat steadily like my heart--hypnotic, secure, routine. However, even though I love being at home most of the time, sometimes I get these...these urges. They usually happen when I glance up at the sky and see an airplane's silhouette slicing through the light blue canvas upon which the clouds paint their fanciful pictures. When I spot one of these majestic human-carrying birds, I want to be on that plane going somewhere, seeing something, experiencing life.

Having an adventure!

If learning to love to travel came as a surprise to me in my later years, the destinations I found myself visiting were even more shocking to my homespun sensibilities. For example, I've developed a special fondness for the Caribbean, an area that in my youth I would have never, ever imagined I'd be lucky enough to see. The ocean and islands are somehow familiar to me in a way I can't explain, and I feel a connection to the people and nature that I can't really explain.

I know that many folks think that it's because of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that I've fallen under the Caribbean's spell, but it's not. The movies would have never come about if the pirate lore hadn't survived this long, and the pirate lore about the area didn't survive this long because people hate the Caribbean. Rather, I think they're as mesmerized by it as I am, especially by the warm Caribbean waters. I can just imagine the romantic notions and tales that swirled in the heads of the sailors who frequented the seas there as they gazed out at the ocean, like dark velvet--lonely but not really alone, as everything is alive in the ocean--their imaginations, in the form of a shapely mermaid or a wooden chest full of treasure, keeping them company under the silver moonlight.


I've traveled many other places over the years, but the Caribbean's captured my heart in a way not every other place has, although I do have other favorite spots as well. Today, though, I'm just going to post some pictures from the Caribbean, one of my favorite travel spots and the setting for some of my past and future stories. Enjoy!