Map!

In a typically lovely post, Lorna wrote recently that she was innocent and naive about certain things, especially when it comes to real estate. I must confess that there is a certain aspect of my own innocence and naivete that I have yet to lose. I spent a better than average part of childhood in the backseat of a green Pontiac Catalina, with no air conditioning. This is because my parents drove across the country every year to visit friends in Albequerque and Las Vegas. We'd go for a whole month and visit every landmark along the way. To me, this was as good as life could possibly get, and I was endlessly fascinated with things like Mount Rushmore, The Grand Canyon, slot machines, and the World's Largest Ball of Twine. My backseat "toy" of choice was always a map, so that I could follow along as we drove. In my younger years, I had one of those kids' maps, that had fun little pictures in all the states. You know what I'm talking about. Pennsylvania would have a little coal miner and a Liberty Bell. Idaho would have trees and a potato. Texas would have oilwells and cowboys and tumbleweeds. You know.

Because of these maps (thanks to them, more like) I have a mild but persistent case of romanticizing places. Even now, at the age of 36, I am a little dissappointed when I cross the border into Kentucky and the grass is not blue. I get a touch deflated whenever I enter Florida and don't immediately see an orange grove. I am always dissappointed now, when I travel, because as time goes on, places get more and more alike. Every town seems to have a Wal-Mart, a Chili's and a McDonald's. Damnit. When I enter Arizona, I want to see cacti and a derelict Gulf station with a vaguely creepy and very dirty attendant. Not Wal-Mart. When I enter Georgia, I lament the peculiar lack of abundant peaches and magnolias in my immediate view, but I perk up when I see the red mud. When I enter Texas, I want to see cowboys EVERYWHERE. (Of course, I want that all the time, but still, I'm just saying.) I don't want to see the same damn things that are in my own back yard. I guess the bottom line is that I wish for a world that's just a little Disneyfied, in that everything looks exactly like you expect it to. I don't know if I'll ever get over that.

And even now, I own at least 15 atlases, and a conservative estimate of the size of my road map hoard would be 150. I have road maps for places I'll likely never drive. I can tell you how to get anywhere in the country. I even know what roads are best for getting from London to Devon. And what's even weirder is that I keep a change of clothes, toothpaste and shampoo in my car at all times, as well as a cooler. I think that at any moment, I may decide to discover the bayou-living voodoo woman who will meet me at the border with juju as soon as I get to Louisiana. I think I'm a flight risk.