As I was sizing up the whole thing, the company told me it needed
credit card receipts to repay me for my travel. I don't know if you
can grasp the meaning of this. I was accustomed to staying at
cash-only joints with bad plumbing and foul smells. The type of
places that take credit cards usually had working showers and no
smell at all. I went right out and got myself a credit card.
When I first started traveling at company expense, I felt guilty.
Here I am, I thought, staying in a room with a working TV and a bed
that didn't rent by the hour. Does the company know I am living the
high life here?
This wasn't a job. This was a dream. I wanna rock and roll all
night and party every day.
I traveled hither and yon, to and fro, from the up- per reaches of
Canada to see polar bears in the wild, to
South Africa to explore
its unfolding cultural and political drama, to all over
Europe. I
don't know that I ever achieved true road warrior status, but I was
out there traveling enough to buy and actually read travel
guidebooks.
Along the way, though, something happened. A family, I think they
call it. My wife and I had a son. I found myself wanting to spend a
little less time on the road and a little more time at home.
I still loved to travel, and I did so every chance I got. But I
didn't create those opportunities the way I once did. That's when I
knew that, yes, I had become a road warrior. For only people who
truly love and live something know, too, that thing's grind.
People who don't travel much tend to be envious of those who do.
"Gosh," they say after you've regaled them with stories about your
recent trip. "I wish I could go to Bora Bora." Never mind that you
had just returned from
Milwaukee and hadn't said anything about
Bora Bora. In their mind's eye, they see glamour. They see
traveling a lot as a dashing way of life, one that transcends the
normal humdrum of everyday existence, that provides a chance to
experience exotic foreign cultures like
Paris,
Buenos Aires, and
New Jersey. And it is.