Trip Planning: Spring Travel & Fall Travel

This spring I'm going on a trip with friends to North Carolina. It will be my 3rd time there (beyond the airport). I've spent a lot of time in Lexington NC and also Chapel Hill for work. I no longer travel really all that much for work so it's a treat to plan trips for fun.

I scored tickets on JetBlue for only $11 (used some JetBlue points!). I only keep frequent flyer points on Virgin America and JetBlue as it's hard for me to fly any other airline in the US. Outside of the US I'm pretty unbiased. I love non-USA airlines. I also got a free ticket to use for the fall trip--road trip for 10 days with my hubby in CO and UT. That will be my 3rd trip to CO and my first to UT (beyond the airport of course).

So it's fun at this point to dream about hiking in a tee shirt. It's fun to think about hiking in boots that are not snow boots. There's still several feet of snow at our home in Maine and the ice is still 18-24" thick in town at our friend's lakes. There was an ice fishing derby this past weekend.

I'm curious what trips you folks are planning for 2015? Are you like me and not really doing much work travel? I used to do work travel 3 months in the spring and 3 months in the fall so it was a lot. I was a bit of a road warrior and I do MISS it with all my heart and soul. I'm a bit of a nomad at heart. A nomad with roots. A nomad divided between MA and Maine (happily).

Here's what I'm thinking about today (below photo). Asheville, North Carolina. The mountains. Fresh air that is not recycled through a tired HVAC system. Cool breezes. Wearing my cowboy boots for a night out on the town. And maybe some magic on the trails. Spotting animal tracks or sharing a lovely lunch packed for a hike with friends.

1994

1994

Last night as I was falling asleep I could not help but think about the year 1994. That's the year I started off with a really hard winter. I also started a new job that spring at Stop & Shop in Northampton, MA (shout out to my former co-workers). I was a bagger and worked my way up to cashier. I was a High School junior without a driver's license and 1/2 hour from "town" but I was determined to work. 

That's just me. I always found a way and I shared rides with friends to get to my job. I figured I'd save up for car insurance and my very first car. My very first car was purchased in 1995 and it was a Subaru GL hatchback. THE BEAST. The Beast got me through the rest of high school and all of college.

Back to 1994. In 1994 I met some pretty great friends and said goodbye to others who went off to college, joined the Air Force (you know, usual kid-to-adult transition stuff). In Spring of 1994 something magical happened. I made friends that I still have to this very day: March 12, 2015. The winter of 2015 was also unusually hard. 2" more and we'll break the all-time record for snow in Boston. This is the time of year I begin to HOPE for that 2". Come on--break that darn record!

In Fall of 1994 (after a whole summer of being friends) I began to date my now husband. 6 years later on the very same date but different year we got married on October 14, 2000. The other night I watched a friend's band in Western MA and it occurred to me how important that number is to my life every single solitary day. Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Four.

I'd love to hear from you if you also have a killer year that basically made you exactly who you are and who you want to be. And to all the friends I re-connected with FROM 1994 after not talking for more than 2 decades: Thank you. Thank you Internet. I always needed you in my life and now we've come full circle. It just took more than twenty years.