Places I've Got to See

Three years ago I wrote about Places I'm Dying to See where I listed exotic locales that I'm determined to see at some future date. But a funny thing has happened the older I get . . . while I still want to see Giza and Petra I'm more interested in ever before in my own country.

Andrew and I traveled a bit before we had children--goodness, our honeymoon alone involved nine separate plane rides--and we took our little red car and drove from Utah to California then back again and then from Utah to Washington D.C. then back again. A year later we went north and drove as far Winnipeg, Manitoba up through Montana and North Dakota then back south through South Dakota and Wyoming. A total of forty states, six countries and counting.

I guess I've finally grown an appreciation for some of the amazing sights America has to offer and I've been keeping a list of places I'm determined to visit. Here's the list I'm saving for when the kids leave home and I can tap Andrew on the shoulder and say, "Wanna go for a drive?"

1. The Outer Banks. I've never been to North Carolina but three years ago some friends of ours had a family reunion on the Outer Banks and listening to their description of the area was the only taste I needed to decide that I must see this place some time.

Beaches are my very favorite thing--mountains and lakes and valleys are great but something about the sound of the waves on the shore and the slightly decayed salty smell of low tide completely relaxes me. I can't get enough and if I had my choice I'd live on a beach somewhere. Anywhere. But this particular beach is appealing because I've never been to this part of the world and it seems spread out, airy and wide open rather than the narrow, crowded California beaches I'm used to. If you know differently please don't ruin my vision, I'm enjoying it way too much.

2. Death Valley. Yup, you read that right. If I live in a place that boasts the highest point above sea level in North America then it makes sense that I'd like to visit the lowest point.

Actually, I'd like to go to Death Valley not just for the chance to say that I've been there and the fact that it has a menacing, uber-cool name I want to go for the wildflowers.

I've read that somehow the desert gets some years of heavier rainfall which produce amazing wildflower displays. This doesn't happen every year, just some times and when I read about the phenomenon several years ago they were saying that the heavy rainfall of 2005 produced wildflowers that you'd rarely ever see again. Sigh. I would have loved to have seen it.

3. Prince Edward Island. Okay I'm totally cheating here and I know this isn't even in America but I'm going to fudge just this once because I've wanted to visit ever since (you guessed it) I fell in love with Anne of Green Gables.

Since then I've seen pictures of the real Avonlea and the real island and it appears every bit as picturesque and beautiful as described in the famous book though I bet they get a lot of us dorky tourists all coming to see the places Anne lived as if she was a real person or something.

Ah well. It would be fun.

Nearby Nova Scotia too has always held a fascination--my father went there in the 90s and ran into former President George Bush (the elder) who was also enjoying some fishing. Small world huh? I found this site that lists the best camping places in Canada which probably deserves a post on its own.

4. Redwood National Forest. I've been to California a million times but mostly stuck to the southern part of the state. Something about being able to see a tree so big you can drive a car through it appeals to the kid in me I guess. It seems like I might have actually been to the forest when I was too young to remember but what good does that do me?

I was listening to NPR last week and there was a program where the host goes on these excursions and narrates his trips, describing everything he sees and hears and experiences. Last week he was in northwestern Australia in the middle of a jungle and was describing the bats that were coming out as dusk fell. I was driving in my car in Alaska during break up but in my mind I could see the bats overhead and feel the steamy heat of of the forest as if I was right there with him.

The only thing is, he described the trees he saw and it was completely beyond me to see them too. The description was so fantastic I just couldn't get it--he talked about tentacle-link roots descending to the forest floor and trunks and branches that looked like dragon tails and I haven't a clue what they look like. So that's another forest I'd like to see but that's hardly a qualifier for this week's list.

5. Charleston, South Carolina. I'm afraid my list is rather heavily based in the south because that's the part of the country I haven't seen much of. I've been all over Florida and to the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport (ditto Atlanta) but that hardly counts.

This city, however, has held my interest for years. My father went there for a business trip years ago and I still remember the gorgeous pictures he brought back of the Georgian mansions on the water and the wrought-iron work everywhere. So old and historic I couldn't help falling in love. The people I've known from Charleston have such a soft, gentile-sounding, aristocratic southern sound to their voices that it just reinforces my certainty that should I ever make it to this town I'd be helplessly in love.

6. Savannah, Georgia. The same can be said for Savannah. Before Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil came along to make the city famous I was already longing to see it for myself.

To me most cities tend to be very much the same. Stick me in the middle of Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis or Atlanta and I doubt I could guess which city I was in. There are a few though that have such personality: Boston, New Orleans, Nashville, Washington D.C. . . . to see them isn't just big buildings and fancy restaurants it's a cultural event.

So I put Savannah on the list too. It's not that far from Charleston, relatively speaking--I'll make it there someday.

7. Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Confession time: I've never read Misty of Chincoteague but . . . I have a daughter who did. Grace went through a huge horse-loving phase where she read every horse book she could get her hands on and I was forced by motherly love to live vicariously through her.

More than anything she wanted to visit Chincoteague Island where the wild horses live (though she informed me they're not really true wild horses but have turned feral). Apparently each June they have "Pony Penning Day" where some of the wild ponies are rounded up and sold at auction and Grace wanted to be there to get her own pony.

Now I'm not quite the sucker for horses that she is but after all the talk about the island and the plans she had to get there I would like to see it myself. My brother and sister in law were there and sent me a box of conch shells like you see here and so far that's the closest I've had to going.

8. Niagara Falls. I know this is probably cliche but I've heard that the falls are so much more impressive than can be imagined or photographed. One of those things that you have to see for yourself and though I've been to New York I never made it that far north.

When Andrew and I lived in Washington D.C. before we had kids we were scheduled to drive back west to Utah after our semester was over. Our money was gone, we needed to get on to the next task of earning more money to support ourselves so while our friends decided to take the leisurely drive back through upstate New York we opted for the more efficient way of straight through. I don't know how many times over the years we'd wished we'd taken our time and taken the detour with them.

Oh well. Woulda coulda shoulda. We'll just have to save Niagara for another time.

9. The Grand Canyon. I've been around Arizona several times but have never seen the biggest natural tourist attraction ever.

And while I would never have turned down a trip to the canyon it wasn't until some friends of ours went on a hiking trip there last summer that I realized what I'd been missing. I lapped up the details of their trip and pictured myself hiking through Sedona and Red Rock and seeing the Painted Dessert and the Superstition Mountains (best name EVER) and it all just clicked. I wanted to go very badly.

I think what really did it was their description of the hike they took to the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers. They said that very close to where they camped is the Hopi Sipapu--or the place where the Hopi people believe that man emerged into the world. It's a natural spring covered by a dome of rock that has been shaped by the water over the millenia and the place is supposedly sacred to the Hopi even today as the birthplace of mankind.

Our friends tried to hike to the spot and find the spring themselves but the location is kept as a bit of a secret (the picture above is the only picture I could find and it's from a book--I don't know if it's even legitimate). It's so difficult to find they never got there.

Something about their narrative made me want to go backpacking along the river to see if I couldn't find it myself. What a trip it would be.

10. Mammoth National Park, Kentucky. I can't remember where I heard about this place, it must have been years ago, but I read that Kentucky has these underground caves and rivers that are really amazing. I've never been spelunking before--never been in a cave of any kind--and I find them fascinating.

I don't know if you've seen the series of BBC videos called Planet Earth but one of the discs is devoted entirely to caves and it's my favorite of the series. I've watched it four or five times now and every time I get this feeling that's a mixture of horror at being in a dark, damp, spooky place and excitement at the exploration of it all.

So a place with caves would definitely have to be on my list.

11. The Oregon Vortex. Okay you're going to think I'm just silly on this one but stick with me here. Supposedly there is this place in Oregon that claims there's some kind of a bubble or warp in the gravitational field of the area such that the laws of physics and gravity do not apply the way they do to the rest of us. It's become a roadside tourist attraction where the buildings on the site lean in odd ways, producing optical illusions.

I know this doesn't make much sense but as best I can deduce there are many places around the world where the slant or the line of the environment produces an illusion on the brain, forcing it to think that it's seeing something that it's not really seeing and I'd like to see it for myself.

For example, a road may appear to run uphill when in fact it's running downhill so that a car left in neutral will appear to roll uphill. Likewise will a tennis ball on the floor appear to roll uphill when it's in fact rolling downhill just as it should be. You can see a hoaky but fun video demonstration here.

I don't think that there are any laws of physics being broken here, no alien force fields, no warps in the space-time continuum--just a fun optical illusion and I'd like to see it. Shoot there are plenty of things I'd like to see in Oregon, starting with the coast, so I figure as long as I'm there I'd pay a visit to the Vortex and see if it's as the pictures make it out to be.

Probably not. It reminds me of how as a kid I wanted to see Madam Tousseau's Wax Museum when we went to London. Forget the cultural icons like the Tower of London or Parliament, I wanted to see the wax museum. Go figure.

12. Tennessee. I'm a little vague here because I'm not entirely sure which parts I want to visit, I just know that after studying the Civil War I want to see the plantations and mansions that I've heard are still standing. Tennessee sent more soldiers into the Civil War than any other state (so I've been told) hence the nickname "the Volunteer State" and I've heard it's just amazingly beautiful. Besides the mansions I'd also want to visit the Civil War battlefields--more battles took place in this state than in any other. Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Johnsonville--I'd love to tour the battlefields and make my way east to west across the state.

Whose with me?

Photos courtesy of National Geographic, Western Colorado Publishing, Prince Edward Island National Parks and Mammoth Cave National Park

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