Lots of places, mostly in the USA. The Western Slope of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the High Country on the Eastern Slope, the Ozarks where my people first settled in the USA, the American South-Western desert, the Four Corners area. Upper Michigan, Ohio River Valley, Illinois River. Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smoky Mountains. Most of our national forests. Truman Dam and environs. Ohio and West Virginia along Highway 33 from Circleville, Ohio to Bluefield, WV. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado. Salt Lake City. Most of Wyoming by Amtrak. Pickle Meadows Mountain Warfare Training Center, CA. Mystic, Connecticut. Long Island, New York. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Twenty-Nine Palms, California.
Vancouver, Canada. Naha, Okinawa, Japan. Subic Bay and Grande Island, Philippines. Bochum, Germany. Manaus, Brazil. The hutongs of Beijing, China. Masan, South Korea. Montreal, Canada.
I can, as you probably guessed, 'recharge my batteries' nearly anywhere. Any setting; I can see and feel the beauty of that place, absorb and appreciate the splendor. I only need to relax and be at one with it. I love to travel by car and motorcycle, on my own schedule, with no destination. Some of the best vacations I ever took were alone - me and my old Toyota pick up truck, a sleeping bag and my thoughts and the road.
I once took off from Denver on a two-week vacation with no destination in mind - I just followed my nose. Drove up into the High Country. Saw elk grazing side-by-side with horses in a penned corral with snow on their backs and breathing steam, their antlers like crowns on their heads. Drove down through beautiful green valleys on narrow switchbacks, where every turn revealed a new verdant delight to the eyes, hawks and eagles led my truck on, and wading in a tiny stream in water so cold it hurt felt like being in church. When I hit Mesa Verde, I had my first involuntary vision-quest-like dreams, sleeping on pullouts under the stars in the back of my truck, seeing stars so large and bright like they were coming down to get me. Never one to wear my religion on my sleeve, or to necessarily connect religion and spirituality, as I neared Four Corners, I felt the power, so strong and intimate and deep that I thought well, if this isn't the Face of God, it will do until I find Her. I drove across Arizona and into California, looped back and came home, never stopped marveling.
I've felt the power, or The Force if you prefer, in a number of places since then. Standing on the battlefields of Gettysburg, where Pickett's Charge ruined itself against the Union lines. Driving through the Sangre de Cristos on Highway 159 from Questa, New Mexico through to Fort Garland, Colorado, and then from 150 to the Great Sand Dunes. Driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway, when the steam begins to rise from the Smoky Mountains and the ridges do indeed, turn blue. Soaking in the caverns in Idaho Springs, Colorado. Standing in silence in the darkness deep inside Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. At the Marine Corps Memorial in DC. Visiting the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Colorado. Even at the Very Large Array. Even driving through West Virginia and smelling the smoke from coal fires in towns like Clifton Forge, West Virginia.
I love life, I love the world, I love America. I find things to like about wherever I am, but I always have the wanderlust too. I recharge my batteries wherever I am, I fill myself with the beauty that presents itself to me. Life is good.
