Pre-flight
10:15 p.m.. Twelve hours from my first trip to Chicago. Good bourbon, one ice cube, a heavy glass.
Regardless of how the details above change, I’m always nervous before my travels. Within the last 18 months I’ve had the fortune to visit the soaringly beautiful Guatemala, the bottomless expanse of the Grand Canyon (while snowing!), a surprisingly sunny Seattle and the drum-circle-and-hackey-sack crunchiness of Asheville.
All of them started the same way; travelling-induced insomnia and a huge appreciation for what might next be. How often am I introduced to truly new situations? How often am I expected to spend x days on somebody else’s turf, in a new city, a new state? It’s all fantastic, really. I haven’t done enough travel to be satisfied (will I ever?), but as long as pre-flight nights are long and nervous, I know my excitement to chase that ghost is still here.
See you in Chicago*
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*please don’t break into my house and steal all my stuff or I’ll have El Train come visit you in the night.