The day is almost here

As I look at the clouds going by on this beautiful Maine July day, its hard to imagine ever needing to leave my own backyard. But the weeks have been slipping by, a small fortune has been spent on plane tickets, and somehow the time has almost arrived when I'll be picking up my (skillfully and lightly packed) bag, and heading off.

The title of this blog, where I will, internet-cafe dependent, be posting my adventures, comes from one of my favorite poems, Tennyson's Ulysses. I think it sums up the feeling.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!