Armchair travel

I have finally been to San Francisco! Of course, I didn’t really go, but I discovered one of the great benefits of reading on the computer. It’s long been understood that reading can take you places that you’ve never been—but visiting them on the computer adds new depth to the vicarious travel experience. During pandemic, when so many of us are fearful of travel, this is truly a new opportunity.

I’m reading, as I said a few days ago, a mystery series set in Virginia’s wine country. But the current volume takes the heroine, Lucie Montgomery, to San Francisco. First off, let me admit that I am not the most adventuresome traveler. I remind myself of the little old lady who went on her first airplane ride. When asked how it was, she said, “It was all right, but I never did put my full weight down.” That’s me—I never put my full weight down when traveling, an uneasiness that baffles many of my more adventuresome friends. I simply point out that my horoscope sign is Cancer and one of the characteristics is that I am a homebody.

I also want to add that I have been to Los Angeles and southern California and have no great desire to go back, although taking the local train from LA to San Diego, right along the shore, was pretty interesting. But San Francisco intrigues me more than LA. For many years before his death, my children’s father lived in the mountains above Santa Rosa, and they visited him fairly often. Because Napa Valley and the California wine country was one of the few places on my bucket list, I used to joke I’d go with them. They could stash me in a motel and visit when convenient. Somehow, they never warmed to that idea.

The book I’m reading now, The Sauvignon Secret, takes the heroine from Loudoun and Fauquier counties in Virginia to San Francisco. Last night I found myself reading about places like Oakland and the Embarcadero and the Golden Gate Bridge. I started with the Embarcadero because I’d heard the term but had no concept of what it was. A quick computer search took me not only to the Embarcadero but allowed me to expand and shrink a map so that I could get a sense of where places where in relation to each other—Oakland, San Jose, Santa Rosa. Places that had just been vague names in my mind suddenly became real, and I saw why my children sometimes flew into San Jose, where Oakland lies in relation to San Francisco, the route of the famed 101. An instant geography lesson, and it all made sense to me. Not only that, but it increased my comprehension of and pleasure in reading the novel.

So now when I think about books I want to read, I’ll factor in places I want to visit. Napa is still on my bucket list, as is Alaska. But I hit the jackpot with a 2011 trip to the Scottish Highlands. Number one on my bucket list would be a return trip to Scotland. I chronicled that wonderful journey in blogs, beginning with May View from the Cottage: Scotland--a retrospective (judys-stew.blogspot.com). As I searched for that link, I got caught up in the nostalgia of revisiting that trip. Guess my next geographical exploration will be the Highlands.

Instead of fretting about travel restrictions and cautions right now, open a good book, boot up your computer, and travel wherever you want to go.