Thinking through our December travels & revels.

First, clear ones calendar. Second, check ones bank account. Do I want
to go some place warm I really want to go someplace different, where
the next person I meet is certain to be a person I had not meet. Or
where the next person is known from a past, but the geographical
location makes the encounter a total surprise. Your college girlfriend
shows up in City Light books in San Francisco, for example. At least,
I want to go someplace where English is spoken somewhat differently,
and that could mean Montreal. Or someplace where one can drop out of
the culture for a week. There's a good place in the Mayacamas north of
the Napa Valley for that. I wonder if my favorite hideaway in San
Diego is still ridiculously cheap, so close to where San Diego River
flows into the ocean and the pier functions as sun dial and calendar.
Once I soujourned for a long stay in a cheap funky joint in Key West
and drove around Cruise Ship passengers in their modified golf carts
and took in noontime piano concerts in a cathedral constructed of
coral reef. I remember living out of car near a lighthouse and surf
fishermen in Montauk, no one troubling me, finding a private place to
pee. There's the year I booked three weeks in Las Vegas, a hotel that
you can't find any more, the New Frontier, getting an unbelievable
price through Priceline. I drove through the desert, visiting tiny
towns like Blue Diamond. At noon, drinking free Heinekens at the
Venetian and breaking even at craps. Alas, what is more boring than
someone elses past road trips, nothing but story. What is more
distressing than another man's rootlessness, or lack of plans