Postcard from here. Always from here.

Summer is the best time of year. The weather is agreeable, the days are longer, and there's more to do. This means I tend to ruminate less and accomplish more. The burdens that seem intolerable in the cold, gray days of winter seem much more manageable in summer's sunlight.

I'm deep in the Southwest U.S. at the moment, and the heat doesn't bother me. Frankly, it's not significantly cooler back home. The change of scenery shifts my mood ever so slightly to a better setting. The Sonoran Desert agrees with me.

Places have been on my mind a lot lately. Every year, when it's time for vacation once again, I know that Frank will opt to not participate (he prefers to dedicate his vacation days to home improvement). This bothers me tremendously. I could tavel alone, but I simply don't want to. In lieu of adventure travel, I visit people I know. There's nothing wrong with that, but at some point, I'd like to stop depending on friends and family to help me have vacations.

My whole life, I believed that I would eventually get out and see the world. Granted, I got off to a good start in my teens and I've done a fair amount of domestic travel, but a vacation spent traveling somewhere new, a real adventure, hasn't been on the agenda in decades. My passport expired in 1981 and I've never had any legitimate need to renew it.

My chances seem to be slipping away, eroding as time passes. I am 50 years old. I figure I have twenty good years left, at most, to travel comfortably and in good health. The last twenty years have passed quickly, and I now I fear that the next twenty will find me having covered no ground at all in the end.