Treating the Itchy-Feet/Wanderlust Syndrome

Ready and hoping for a warm (but not too warm) and clear first day-but it really doesn't matter... The game is afoot and we're raring to go. Even have hikers with us to begin which is great. We'll walk with Calem and Emi to school, and then down the road with David E., Jen H. and Wendy L.

Exactly a year ago I ended a six-week peregrination through Portugal, staying in hostels and having a fine adventure, with an arrival in Napa on April 30. And the next morning headed for the Napa Win Train Station and a return to the Central Coast on AMTRAK. For Kari, David and kids it was just the first stop in a day which would lead to Oakland and their own adventure on Kauai.

Our diagnosis for the 'Syndrome" and its treatment was rather like the patient who visits a dermatologist: the doc examines the problem, consults several picture books, re-examines with greater intensity, and asks "have you had this before?" "About a year ago I had the same thing" the patient replies. "Well you've got it again" is the physician's response.

So, we keep fighting the "problem," but with the same sense of excitement and pleasure that James Joyce describes in 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.'

"He felt his cheeks aflame and his throat throbbing with song. There was a lust for wandering in his feet that burned and set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed to cry. Evening would deepen above the sea, night fall upon the plains, dawn glimmer before the wanderer and show him strange fields and hills and faces. Where?"

I can hardly wait for the firsts steps of morning.....