I Went Through The Desert on a Horse With No Name

Okay, well, if we're being fair, it wasn't a horse, it was a convertible. And to be completely honest, it was only a temporary treat of a car, so I didn't even other to name it.

Now I feel bad. But I shouldn't, really, because I did give this car a lot of compliments during our desert adventure. It was a good cart and Mickey was 100% right to do the splurge. If it were up to me we'd've been tooling around in a tinly little economy car with a hard roof. 

And not living the movie life in the desert that we just did. 

I have a LOT to talk about in regards to this trip, probably in the form of a couple posts: "The Wedding" (complete with pics of a STUNNINGLY Emotional wedding and a story about how I spent 30 minutes at the reception warning of the dangers of toxic "family" work environments.) and "The Art" [which includes all the (sometimes very out of the way) wild places I told Mickey I wanted to see and he took me to, with zero idea of what he was in for. However, there was a very sweet moment where he exclaimed, "They have this in GTAV!" - this actually happened a lot.)

However, today, I wanted to talk about Christmas. 

Mickey has to work and now I have the travel bug and I want to go somewhere!

Alone, if I have to! I've never done that before, so why not try it now, when I'm all excited and confident! And finally, finally figured out the right angle to tell the story of my favorite two elephants in a non-childrens' book format. 

And these elephant's 100% true story is decidedly not a kid's book. 

But this trip also made me realize that to give this project the focus, it needs to be done, I need to be away from the demands of my daily life. 

Like, even though my demands are not much now, I can never get into the focused brainspace to work on bigger writing projects when I'm at home, because the dishes in the sink are screaming to be washed, and my bookshelves aren't organized yet and the yarn art on the rotunda isn't going to finish itself and I feel so guilty everytime I look at it. 

So with all that happening in there, my brain didn't have the chance to focus on a big creative pursuit. And even if Mickey says, "Don't worry about the ___" or even if I tell my brain that. It still worries and stresses, until that task is done. And then my dumb brain just comes up with new things to focus on. Never anything creatively beneficial. Jst dumb chores. 

However, on this trip, there was a lot of amazing downtime. One day, I asked Mickey to drive 2 hours away in the middle of nowhere to see some art. We ended up seeing a couple other things that were equally as amazing (and one that was easily the most terrifying place I've been, ever). 

The drive was part of the adventure, without a doubt. We didn't talk much. I was lost in thoughts trying to figure out, once again, how to make this story work for grown ups.

I didn't land on the solution until the plane ride home, but all this time I spent just taking in massive amounts of beauty gave me the much-needed time I needed to reject all these other ideas. 

I started the book in a email draft on my phone during the plane ride home, so I wouldn't forget the magical momentum. 

And I'm ready to keep it going until completion. 

Which brings me to this Christmas Trip I wanna take. (I'm thinking 12/24-28 at the most)

Here are my requirements:

• Inexpensive
• A walk-around destination (meaning, I can uber to the place I am staying from the airport and then walk everywhere else I need)
• Art, but not, like, museum art. I'm looking for more installation art or folk art or assemblage art. 
• A bathtub.
• Somewhere where I am guaranteed not to sweat
• Maybe there is a friendly face nearby I can get a meal with?
• Neat things to see from my window

I think that is the main things. 

I thought about doing the thing and going to NYC for the holidays, which is a lifelong dream. But I really don't want to do that alone, you know?

Where should I go? Help me figure it out!