Preface To Motorways: Vacation

It occurred to me very recently that I hadn't left Portland - or hadn't been outside of the Greater Portland Metropolitan Area - in almost two years*. That would not have seemed too surprising to my mother who, though she was born in Germany, married a GI & lived the vast majority of her life in Texas. Indeed, in her last twenty years, I only think she left the Dallas area a handful of times, usually for weddings - like mine, in 2008. My sister Pat was the same - she had lived in California & Georgia for a few years but ended up living most of her life in a house very close to the house she had lived in as a child.

Basically I don't come from a long line of wanderers. I come from homebodies, mostly unadventurous people who would admire the Thoreau quote "I have traveled a good deal in Concord," if they knew Thoreau existed.

But I felt like I needed a vacation & so after this week's episode, I'll be disappearing for a couple of weeks. I have prepared radio shows to run in the place of Self Help Radio - & also episodes of The Dickenbock Report that will air in its space on Sundays. It'll be a road trip, since we have a dog with severe separation anxiety. But the plans have been made.

So. What could possibly go wrong?

* Okay, I forgot I went to San Francisco last summer. It just feels like I haven't left Portland in two years.