No reason to post, actually...

but I'm getting the travel bug again...

 I've been thinking about southern Italy(?) - northern Italy(?) - somewhere else entirely?

Southern Italy (Bari province).  The cone shaped buildings are trulli.  Now days some are private homes and some you can stay in.  They really appeal to my sense of the whimsical.

Northern Italy - A view of Lake Como with the Dolomite (I think) mountains in the background.  This is considered one of the most beautiful areas of Italy.

Somewhere else entirely - this one's tricky because if I went in November it would have to be a fairly southern location.  One of the places I'd like to visit is some of England's cities other than London, especially Oxford and/or Cambridge.  I also think I'd like Wales.  But I wouldn't like either one of them in November!  So this is a picture of Mt. Etna in Sicily.  I'd very much like to see more of Sicily than I did on my first visit.

And then yesterday Peggy and I went to the Wild Ramp and they had beautiful cones of very fragrant basil which turned out to be the entire plant with roots and all.  I decided I was going to try and make some pesto with it and brought it home.  Last night I looked at recipes on line and then remembered that when I took my cooking class in Riomaggiore in 2010 one of the things we made was pesto.  So I went to my blog to see if by any chance I had said how we did it but I hadn't.  I did got the pesto made and served it on some store-bought ravioli and it was quite tasty.  But the point of the story is that I ended up reading the whole post about that cooking class day and enjoyed it enough that I decided I'd just start at the beginning and read through the whole trip.  Which I'm now in the process of doing and am so glad.  It's made me realize that it really IS a journal - not just a way to stay in touch with my family and friends while I'm far away.  As I read, it brought back so many memories - good, bad, funny, etc.

So, I'm not going to worry any more about how I ramble on and on in my posts, because, in fact, I've realized that I'm glad I do.

I had ruled out any major trip this year because of some unexpected expenses but I'm now in "wait and see" mode.  I think I have enough frequent flyer miles to get me to somewhere and I discovered last year when I visited Florence in November that expense-wise, that is the time to be there.  The hotel prices drop by about 50% after October 30!  And even before all this wanderlust set in, I had been thinking that since I usually stay in Huntington for Thanksgiving, why not travel over Thanksgiving?  I could leave early to mid November, stay my typical three weeks or so, fly back to DC and then just stay there until Christmas!

At any rate, I just thought I'd "write it down" as my friend's husband says and make the decision to at least start looking and pondering and such.  Anyone have any place in mind that they'd like to visit through my travels? :)