All right ramblers...start ramblin'...

I’ve noticed something. ("Really, Captain Observant? What might that be?")

I pal around with a lot of ramblers. A lot. C’mon, you know what a rambler is? Restless spirits. Wanderers, searchers. Travellers. Peep’s that are not made to settle. Who’d be fine in a tent in the middle of the Desert in the great unknown. Gypsies. Nomads. I gotta tell you, I admire the hell out of people that do that. I do. Who have the means to get up and go. Or even the ones who don’t, and get up and go anyway. You can see it in their faces when you meet them. My girl Bear was like that. We used to road trip allll over and back. Sometimes as close as Superior. Once as far down as Nashville. Many moons ago when we were together, I remember watching her get the itch. MN wasn’t the place for her. Soooo, she hopped on a plane and took off for Namibia. She’s been back a couple of times, taking care of children with AIDS in orphanages.

I happen to like to travel too. I love being there. I like getting out on the street and doing reconnaissance. Walking around. (I always lose weight on vacays. Weird, huh?) Where am I close to? What’s within walking distance? Where are the museums? (I always have to find the local museums, but hey...I'm a geek. Even if it's some boring ass shit like the crappy cowboy museum in Medora, ND) What’s on the busline? I talk to the hotel concierge’s, people that work in the area. I love researching where I’m going ahead of time. What foods are they known for? Did you have clam chowder in a bread bowl when you were in SF? You know damn right I did. Did you have seafood in Boston? Hell yes. Did you get fish and chips in London? Yeah, but I was a little non-plussed so I opted for the prawns on a baguette.

Sometimes I even like it when I get a little lost. It can be scary, no doubt…but sometimes you happen upon wonderful things too. I love getting to know some of the language’s of other places. The sounds of their voices, the intonations, the difference between Alabama, Mississippi, or even TX accents. Teaching myself simple phrases and conversations, trying to emulate the appropriate inflections so that I don’t sound like a complete Eurocentric dork when trying to ask where the toilet is in Spanish. ("Good pronuciation" was all she said.) I mean, how can you not think that that is cool?

Well, I have a house now. A cute fixer-upper that getting fixer-upped. And the complexity that is P, has got me divided into two camps: I have a responsibility to my home. To it’s re-conditioning and maintenance. Except the "now"ness of my life has got me itching to travel. I’ve got some trips planned that should help a budget saavy guy like me get to both coasts b4 the year is out, so that’ll probably get that bug out of my butt.
I’ve decided to call my house the "Base of Operations". Or maybe the "Hall of Justice", just without the Wonder Twins and that goofy ass blue monkey. (I think that Casa del P is fine) The casa is always going to be a place that I can come home to. The world is going to be my stomping grounds.

MN is my home.