The Final Countdown

In a week's time, I'll be either a) sitting in a car bound for NYC, or b) in a hotel in New Jersey trying to get some shut-eye (although that will be incredibly impossible). I can't believe that the time has flown by so fast. I'm still stunned that I'm still going, that this is still happening. I dread the thought of waking up only to realize that it was all a fantastic dream.

But what a dream, right?

There's a nervous jitter shaking my bones. What am I to expect? Who will I meet? Will I find who I'm supposed to be? Personal questions. Soul-searching questions. Questions left best in secret diaries... but there is something thrilling in the pursuit of the answers.

I'm one of those weird ones who are comforted by words---it doesn't matter whose. Dead people, living, fictional. My courage is found in quotes, and so I collect them like other people collect bottle caps and baseball cards.

Here's a few of my favorites, on adventuring, on beginning anew,

"... after all, maps are just paper anyway." Rosemary Wood, why i let my hair grow out 

"There is nothing to regret --- either for those who go or for those who are left behind." Eleanor Roosevelt 

"Not all those who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien 

"I don't want to come to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." Diane Ackerman 

"Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home." Matsuo Basho 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain. 

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." St. Augustine 

"Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." Terry Pratchett, A Hatt Full of Sky 

"Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else." Tennessee Williams 

"Wherever you go, you take yourself with you." Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book 

"The journey is part of the experience --- an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca." Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour 

"It's not about the destination. It's getting there that's the good part." Morgan Matson, Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

And now that I have thoroughly exhausted my favorite traveling/adventuring quotes, I think it might just be time to start packing. Tomorrow. Maybe.

But speaking of traveling (while we're on the subject, Courtney), there are a lot of very good traveling YA novels circulating the shelves these days. I have to admit that I've read almost every single one of them, except for The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour but that's only because Summer in the City snagged my attention---albeit briefly.

These are some of my favorite roadtrip reads (I'll probably be re-reading A&R on the way up to NYC, to be honest)!

So, what's your favorite roadtrip books/quotes/pictures? 

Ashley