Jobless.  Never been jobless before.  It was a strange feeling not having somewhere I was expected to be today.  The closest I have come to this feeling is when I have been on vacation.  Waking up with nothing really planned other than a small list of tasks I need to accomplish.  Fortunately I realize my situation is pretty Utopian compared to those who have lost their job in the current economic down turn.  I am doing this by choice, because of love.  I cannot think of a nobler reason to venture down my current path.  Yet I still have questions.  Wondering whither I will ever find work again.  What the coming months will hold. Questions I cannot answer right now.  I couldn’t presume to know my future other than I have a plan to eventually accomplish.

There are several things I have to get done before I leave these United States.  Documentation to gather, places to go, people to see. And what I am most looking forward to begins on Thursday.  I will board a plane bound in the opposite direction of my eventual destination of Germany.  Flying to California for a week with my dad as he works out there.  I have never been further west of Colorado and Montana.  Hardly spent time beyond the mid west.  So, being in California is an accomplishment for me.  When I was a kid I decided I should visit all 50 states.  It doesn’t seem like I will reach that childhood fantasy now, but adding one more destination to that realization is exciting.

I have several locations I want to visit in California.  A farm show near Los Angeles, a drive to San Francisco, being a guest in the TWiT Cottage. and a three day journey back to the mid-west in a truck with my dad form my list thus far.  Strangely, I am looking forward to the long drive home the most.  Getting to spend those days driving with my dad reminds me of my childhood when I did some short trips with him.  Nothing glamorous or exciting.  Just riding there listen to the radio or watching the landscape pass by while eating our bag of Twizzlers.

I’m glad I have this time.  Even though I am jobless, and feel strange because of it, I am looking forward to the memories I will create.  Hopefully in twenty years I can share them with someone else and feel the warm emotions I know it will bring.  Until then I will continue to work on my little lists.  Strive to get everything ready for that day I leave here and land in Germany.