Why am I a rolling stone?

That's easy. As a kid I read science fiction (I guess by the standard I'm still a kid). Books like Robert H. Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit-Will Travel, and Red Planet make a kid want to get out of Hazen, Arkansas (population 1,400).

Although I haven't travelled abroad, I have lived in several very different places, Little Rock, Arkansas (strangely enough, a fairly progressive little southern city), Jackson, Mississippi (where it's always 1960), Chicago, Illinois (my only "real" big city), and now here in Del Rio, Texas, which is more like Mexico than the US.

Until now it was enough to move around within the country, but no more. Nelson DeMille's Up Country sparked my interest in Vietnam acouple of years ago, and I've decided to spend at least a month there this summer. As a social studies teacher, I have taught the facts about places like Chitzen Itza, Macchu Picchu, and Ankgor Wat. Now I want to see them -- not to take "I was there" pictures but to feel the vibe.

At the Chicago Museum of Art I have stood next to art and artifacts of previous centuries and millienia. They vibrate. It's a visceral, spooky/cool feeling (maybe it was the street vendor hot-dogs, but I don't think so).

Anyway, there is more to travel than going someplace, and more to travel reading than guidebooks.