One of my favorite literary passages is from Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It is when the narrator of the story joins the crew of Captain Ahab’s whaling ship.
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” Herman Melville
Now, my name is not Ishmael, I’ve never felt this melancholy nor have I ever had the need to go to sea. But I do know the desire to roam. RV’ers call this feeling ‘hitch itch.’
What in the world is ‘HITCH ITCH’? I’m sure you can guess. The words themselves give the definition away. It’s that feeling that comes over one when sitting in an RV park for too long. It can lie dormant for a while in the campground but, as the days pass into weeks and the weeks into months, it grows stronger and stronger. It can begin slowly when one sees a license plate from another state, when one opens a travel magazine and reads about a trail one hasn't taken, when one picks up an atlas and begins browsing on the US page or when one talks with the couple next door and shares stories of adventures. Soon, it is a full blown phenomenon with only one cure.
We’ve been sitting here since June 1. First our time was occupied by the sale of our house and the dispersal of our worldly goods. Now, we’re still here while we finally attend to some chores that we have been neglecting since February when we began emptying and selling Lug’s home. Our goal is to remain here until August 31 when we leave on our journey to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. We have so much to do and know that we need the time in a stationary spot. Our journey will be so much better if we get all these little details taken care of.
But, when I pick up my small 8” x 11” atlas or when we walk through the campground and see the Mississippi, the Montana, the Washington license plates or when I read my brother-in-law’s magazine about great places to visit in the US, I feel the hitch itch and want to be off. I want to see it all and start yesterday. But, I know that we had better stay and organize our lives for the future so I’ll content myself with scanning the atlas, with reading about trails in the mountains beyond Iowa, with planning our journey through the National Parks in Utah into Arizona. And, then come September 1, we’ll be off.
So today, we’ll content ourselves with a journey to a Des Moines furniture store and only dream of venturing down the road to a new adventure. My brother needs some new furniture and tomorrow we’re going up to Fort Dodge where he lives to go with him to some local furniture stores to see what he might want. He wants some other opinions besides his own and ours are free. Of course, saying he wants our opinions and really listening to them are two different things. Meanwhile we thought that a visit to a Des Moines furniture store will give us some ideal about what is available in Des Moines and what the prices might be. Luckily, the local store thinks that fresh baked cookies and a cup of coffee are conducive to making good furniture decisions so we hiked to the center of the store, picked out the best chocolate chip cookies and sat to plan our assault of the store.
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