"My time in Britain describes a kind of bell curve, starting at the bottom left-hand corner in the 'Knows Almost Nothing at All' zone, and rising in a gradual arc to 'Pretty Thorough Acquaintanceship' at the top. Having attained this summit, I assumed that would remain there permanently, but recently I have begun to slide down the other side toward ignorance and bewilderment..." – Bill Bryson, from The Road to Little Dribbling


The advantages of standing at curbside check-in outside the Minneapolis Airport at four in the morning at thirteen below zero waiting for the passport scanner to warm-up enough to hopefully save you one more trip inside the terminal only to stand in one more twenty foot line are many. For the travel optimist, just living in the midwest in the winter time means you get to leave it at some point if you are lucky and a wise planner. And as you stand under the ceiling heater at curbside, you realize that the trip has only one direction to go, and that is up and that is south, down where the sun is strong enough to burn through the clouds and actually shine down on both plant and person, and temperatures down there are closer to that which the human body responds to pleasantly, and doesn't feel responsible to add seven more layers of clothing just for a brief leap outside of the car and onto the sidewalk. There is a moment – it is the mind warp of a lifetime – as you stand inside one of these midwest moments, to fully come to grips with the fact that only five short hours away, through sky, through airport, through taxi ride along some never seen before road, that there will be Paradisus! Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; there will be walks along narrow teak wood trails meandering in among palm trees as tall as our very own leafless oaks. It is actually true that all of this energy of projection toward the future is used to get through the three hours of sleep the night before inside the cramped hotel room shared with three daughters and a wall heater that likes to sing uneven baritone, of and on, off an on, and whip the lacey curtains like long ghosts onto your side of the bed. Because you know, at that very moment of near hypothermia, the color blue still exists outside of the mind's eye. Water is warm somewhere. Waves along the beach roll over the ankles like mini massages. In a word, part of the appeal of living in the northern center of the middle of midwest is that it breathes both the prospects of fire and glory into the idea of escape.