Travel has a cost. Experience is free.

The 30s are amazing. I have caught myself thinking and saying this often. I feel this expansion in my being – I don’t mean in kilos (Well, there is that but we’re not talking about that yet). I mean experiential expansion, existential expansion, expansion of possibilities in life; my freedom off my perceptions. So there’s beauty in this and then there’s the fact that this decade coincides with my career choice of being an entrepreneur and the expansion of work hours and responsibilities and depleting savings. The two sides of this put me in muddle and I generally let go of my pleasures and console myself with what all I’m already doing. But my love for travel is turning into an obsession and I’m not willing to postpone this anymore.

So I arrive in Colorado with my husband. We have a two day’s stay at a sports company for business. We slog ourselves out and don’t even look out the windows. There are huge hallways and manufacturing set-ups where equipment is getting packed. We are working on the marketing of these and go through one story board from another trying to arrive at the best idea to sell the products. Glued to the projected visuals on the white walls of the conference hall. We eat out in the cafeteria inside the campus and have not felt that we are half the globe away from our home in Gurgaon. Except that it is extremely cold and we are not eating chapatis. Other than that; the work schedules, the endless meetings and the co-ordinations over chat groups continue. Two days have seemed like  weeks. And finally a friend comes to the rescue. As per schedule he was to pick us from here and take us around town for the day before we retire to our hotel and finally start with the 10 days’ long awaited vacation. He takes us out just before dawn and it is the darkest time of the night. I did pack enough warm clothes but even the walk out to the car is freezing. It is parked in a parking lot outside a dailies’ store that is open 24X7 but there’s no other soul around except the 3 of us. I’m so tired and sleepy that I don’t lift up my eyes to see what’s around. Thinking back; even if I did I would see a thing with the fog and the dark and the barely there will to open my eyes.

We pack in and he drives off. The left hand drive is weird to experience first hand and its difficult to relax. We’re so used to our driving styles here that keeping to your right feels grossly wrong. For some reason he chooses to turn out his flashlight after a while. Amidst all the catching up conversation I begin to see the road with yellow dotted and continuous lines alternating on the darkest silvery grey road. It’s not wide but I don’t feel a single bump. It is a straight long road and far far away it looks like it’s turning upwards. I’m fully awake and a little dazed looking at this road. It’s like the men never noticed the road. I’m not paying any attention to their banter either. I never do that anyway when I’m out in the open. And then the magic starts to happen. We are the only vehicle on the road, driving at 90mph and on both sides there is the ocean. I generally look at the road straight ahead thanks to my ‘motion sickness’ which my husband calls a psychosomatic disorder. And I have spent a lot of time trying to prove to him it’s not. But he doesn’t listen. Did I mention this is my husband we are talking about 🙂

So I didn’t notice this ocean yet and it feels like it just appeared suddenly. The sun is not up yet and the water is black reflecting the sky with reflections of the stars and large white chunks of something shiny and white. It’s like wonderland. I’m scared of the oceans at nights and I find it tough to look in generally. But this is something else. It’s like Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Nights’. Only the spirals he makes to depict the sky are the waves here. While I’m admiring and gaping at the magic to my left I feel a sinking feeling in the stomach. We have reached the part of the road that looked like it was turning upwards. Its the hills and it is quite an uphill road. The ocean continues along. The white chunks are actually large pieces of ice; like you see in a flowing glacier. Just that these are more scattered and are looking like diamonds glistening on smooth ebony skin. The road goes up and down and it’s still dark. My husband finds the outdoors amazing and is dying to open the windows. After a long of struggle to discourage him we fail and he opens his side of the window. He opens it to this loud sound of the waves that are roaring and are chilly and he quickly draws the window up himself. We take our time and turns tormenting him about how cold and scary what he did was. We do that to each other all the time. Change of place didn’t change the equation of us as spouses.

So we go along the road when it starts to get brighter. The sun is coming up from somewhere. I have no idea of directions and I’m already amused so I’m not bothering either. And then the forests start. I almost screamed and startled the other two for I saw a bear right next to the road. It was a huge brown bear lazying on the side of the road. It was like the roller coaster ride we once took at Disney World where they had bears and blasts and jungles. Some rabbits ran along for a while and then vanished into the forest frolicking away; almost playing us. It’s been 3 hours and I have not yet seen another car or human. At about 7:30 the sun is completely out and the sky shows its deepest of blues peeping through the dramatic huge white clouds. I feel drowsy again and doze off.

And then I rise on my bed in my room in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It takes me a few moments to figure out if this is reality. Well, this is. I try closing my eyes, dozing off again thinking I’ll wake up in Colorado but I’m right here. It is the 9th of August and I have tonnes of chores to attend to.

The thing is, I have figured a no fail, hassle free way to travel the world. The best part is that I can go with whoever I want and whenever I want.

I  go places in my dreams.

One might argue on ‘whenever I want’ and yes it is difficult to believe but I have somehow gotten hold of my subconscious in a way that I can will myself to it. We have a pact- my subconscious and me I mean. We let one another assume control as and when required -quite conveniently I confess. And no these travails are not my thoughts getting manifested because I have never visually seen or heard about such places. Call me ignorant but I had never seen pictures of Colorado or even given the name a second thought ever. It is today after I saw it in dreams that I googled the name and found out it’s a western state of the USA. I figured that Colorado is not a coastal state and does not have an ocean. It has rivers and lakes but no ocean. And I’m so amused and almost happy that what I saw in Colorado; was for my eyes only. No one else ever has or will see this side of Colorado, USA.

That makes the experience exclusive to me and I’m a rich woman.