Trina Machacek: Travel envy

That old saying, “When in Rome do as the Romans do,” I see like this, “When in roaming mode do as they who live where you’ve roamed to, do.” When you go on vacation hopefully your vacation takes you places you have dreamt about.

Some pretty beach with warm white sand. Not hot just warm and soft between your toes as you run through it to get to an ocean that has delivered southern warm waters just for you to dive into. Or that mountain lake teaming with fish jumping at whatever bait you throw out attached to just the right weight of line and no wind. Maybe just a breeze to keep the Mayflies down. Breezes that deliver the balsam aroma of the forest floor to your nose as you breathe in deeply never wanting to exhale.

Maybe an exciting city that never sleeps with lights and sounds of music and dancing. Combined with aromas of delis that serve the best bagels in the world to gobble down at three a.m. as you walk with friends back to your swanky hotel that has the softest bathrobes that you just melt into after a long hot shower. It takes no time at all for me to fall in love with the vacation place I choose to go to. But! Yes a luggage packing “but.” HAHA But we cannot live where we dream of—or can we?

A man and a woman went on a beach vacation and began to talk about moving there. It was such a perfect place. Perfect weather, town, people, just perfect in every way. They could maybe buy the rental they were renting the week they were there, but they needed to find a way to be able to pay for it.

So they talked about maybe painting shells of turtles and selling them to the tourist. After all they bought a painted turtle shell so that must be a lucrative business and they would spend their time getting turtle shells from where ever people get turtle shells to paint and sell. Of course they also needed moolah to live on. They would get jobs. Maybe scooping ice cream on the beach. After all they had bought ice cream on the beach. It would be paradise. Scooping ice cream, painting turtle shells.

On the last day of their vacation they sighed as they realized that moving to this wonderful place would be taking the wonderfulness of their vacation and turning it into a place that eventually they would want to escape from, going out to find the next perfect vacation spot.

While riding down a country road recently I passed a green pasture, home to contented cows. Lush and wet with the dew of early morning. I like cows. Cows munched the grass in this pasture like it was the best grass they ever ate. Except this one cow. She was at the fence. Her head was poking through the second and third wire and her neck was stretched out as far as she could possibly stretch it.

Her eyes were wide and her stance was so that she was held up and back by those wires. She was standing in a pasture of lush grass and trees for shade and water running in a creek not forty feet away from where she stood. But for some reason she wanted to be on the other side of that fence where apparently the grass was really greener. That’s where I see me when I go somewhere to visit or see something that is not on my side of the fence. That’s truly “travel envy.” Wanting to be where you dream everything is perfect. All the time, there. Everywhere, there. The land, the food, the weather, the entertainment, the people, there.

Yep just like that cow. She thought the grass was so much better that she poked her head as far away from where she stood to get something that she thought was better, sweeter, more desirable that what she had right under her own two — oops — four feet — uh hoovies. HAHAHA Yes sir, spot-on travel envy.

But. Yes, yes, another traveling “but.” Whether it’s summer or winter or spring or fall when it’s time to dream of all the places you want to go and see and do things that you can do someplace you’d love to go or have dreamt of seeing and experiencing? Take just a minute to look where your feet are planted and hopefully you will want to pull your head back through the fence and realize someone, somewhere is having travel envy of where you live.

Enjoy YOUR place in this world. Every day.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com.