It's been more than half a century since John Steinbeck published Travels With Charley. The author was suffering from heart disease and decided to see America one last time with his French Poodle, Charley, for company. The pair took off from Long Island in a kind of retrofitted camper van.

    The story always captured my imagination.  I find myself toying with the idea of giving up my apartment and purchasing an RV to hit the road and see America. I guess it's the call of the open road kind of thing, and I experience it every winter.

    It would be nice, I keep thinking, to head for Key West, to escape the cold of Wisconsin, and bask, instead, in warm sunshine and gentle breezes. There are parts of the country that beckon during certain seasons.

    If I had an RV, I could spend the month of October in Vermont where I could watch the sugar maples turn a whole mountain side red. I could stop in a roadside cafe for a breakfast of pancakes dripping with Vermont maple syrup.

    I can imagine spending December in Colorado where I could watch big, fluffy snowflakes drifting lazily past my window all day. I would stay, though, only until the holidays were over before heading to a warmer climate.

    I might return home to Lancaster, Pa in april when the pink flowering trees and the azaleas are in bloom. I could swing down to Washington when the cherry trees are clouds of pink petals.

    I would like to spend my summers at the shore, any shore that has sandy beaches, boardwalks, and ice cream parlors.

    The trouble with my RV fantasies, though, is that I would be on the road alone. And I suspect that no amount of gorgeous scenery, no sense of adventure, no freedom of the open road would make up for being away from family and a feeling of being useful to someone.

    I often feel trapped and confined  by a lease to be stuck in one place. I can't afford to have it both ways, an apartment and an RV for traveling, so I must choose. As tempted as I am to be free to travel around the country, I know how much I would miss the visits from my family and the local excursions we enjoy as a family.

    That's not to say, though, that I might not try it for a year. I could always come back.