Armchair Traveler

I travel quite far without a passport or luggage. Occasionally I'll run into difficulty understanding regional dialects, but get by without phrase books. I endure Antarctica's cold, am not bothered by the insects in the jungle—even the goliath birdeater tarantula of South America. My clothes never wrinkle when I'm scaling mountains, sleeping under the stars, or spelunking a thousand feet below the earth.

If the readers of fantastical journeys stopped reading and began to take their own trips— who would read the plethora of books written by those intrepid souls who travel to exotic places?

We belong to a class of watchers, vicarious thrill seekers.

I travel around a small parcel of land—get to know a burl on the tree that overlooks a small stream, the way the apple trees wend their way up a hill, the places on a incline where grass never grows, day lilies in the front of a house.

Without any backpack or tent or accouterments of travel, I meander the streets of this small town. I can show you the yard where a scruffy looking goat resides, or the sculptures put together by a collector of items relegated to the trash heap.

And without a passport I walk around a pond ringed with cat tails and watch a heron standing in one spot.

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Maybe someday I'll set out for some far away place with a unpronounceable name and take part in an adventure filled with danger.

Then I'll return home and write a book to be read by an armchair traveler.