Every year the mister and I vacation in Italy....we buy guide books, scour through them picking out where we want to stay, what we plan to do....we make lists of "must sees" and we argue about how much time we'll be able to spend in each city along the way. So, in preparation for this year's annual trip, I have purchased the first guidebook of the year - In Love In Italy A Traveler's Guide To The Most Romantic Destinations In The Country of Amore by Monica Larner (Rizzoli Publications.) It's a beautiful book, filled with pictures - which I personally love - I like to see what I'm going to see! I read through this book last night - stopping only to mention some of the highlights to the mister - he plans to look through it tonight - the mister doesn't actually read, well I guess that's not entirely true - he CAN read - he just doesn't....so pictures are VERY important to him!
Oh...did I mention that we don't actually GO TO ITALY?!?!? We just take an annual IMAGINARY TRIP - we've never stepped foot in the country! Our first imaginary trip was 8 years ago - we had plane tickets, hotel reservations and good maps torn from the pages of good guide books...we were set...and then our daughter had a serious car accident - everything was cancelled and our dream trip was just that...a dream....put on hold until the following year. Our second imaginary trip started much the same as our first - plans made, reservations made, tickets purchased...and then our daughter announced she was getting married....money for Italy went immediately into the wedding fund.....Trip three...9/11...we had planned to travel in October but our business took a nose-dive and so did our plans. Trip four....the year the deck fell off the house...new deck, no trip. Trip five....I believe this was the year we put on the new roof and not the tile kind you see in Italy....Trip six....oh yes, the year the furnace blew...we heated our house by burning our guide books until the heating guys could install the new one....Trip seven...now that would be the year the tree hit the house - knocking down the new deck....along with my dreams of Portafino...Trip eight, we had such high hopes...it was looking good, too....until the mister tore his acheles tendon...which meant there would be no walking around Cinque Terre or even the concourse at Sea-Tac Airport!
So that brings us to this year...I told my mom a few months back, when she had both of her knees replaced that we were definitely going to Italy this year and she was coming with us...(she and I have talked about going to Italy for years and years)...she just laughed. Oh she of little faith! With the first guide book purchased so early in the year, we are well on our way to what might prove to be the best Imaginary Trip Ever! Or maybe, just maybe, we might actually go!!!
