From Dave's "check-it-out" visit in January 2011

All trips begin long before arrival at the airport, packing the trunk and buying health insurance. They begin when someone wakes up one morning, looks out the window and thinks, “I’ve seen this before. In fact,  everyday.”

That is the beginning. The thought hangs in the air for only a brief moment, until the next thought, which is usually, “Time for coffee,” or if one is married or similarly espoused, “I wonder if my beloved will bring me coffee in bed. Maybe a little nudge will help.”

Travel ideas germinate and these days, they are growing like crazy, if the “interwebs” is any measure. Travel blogs are everywhere and they’re full of great information, most of which goes un-noticed.

I know this, and yet I’ve chosen to blog at the behest of only a few people. Maybe three. It doesn’t take many readers for me to put fingers to keyboard.

But I drift. The point I’m trying to arrive at is that we’ve passed the germination stage of this journey and are still at the static stage, which is that every morning Dave gets up and checks his email to see if our visas have been approved.

You won’t see many pictures of the anticipating traveler hovering over his keyboard every morning. It’s just not glamorous enough, but the truth is that these days, every trip starts this way. If not for waiting on a visa, then for making travel-arrangements, browsing hotels, destinations and the like.

I’m not complaining. This is an improvement over travel circa 1990 when all trip-planning was preceded by 38 minutes of muzak as one waited “on hold” on the phone, stuck to the house by the phone cord, the then-modern-day umbilicus to the travel-mothership, ie. travel agents and or travel-related businesses (airlines, usually).

Those were dreadful days. Let’s not speak of them.

That is where we are today March 21, 2011. Still checking our email, still hovering over the laptop waiting.  It’s not exciting, but it is part of the trip.