I have been meaning to catch up on my travel section for quite some time.  I am categorizing this under travel for incredible reasons.  Growing up our annual family vacation was a trip to Six Flags over Texas.  It was the highlight of my summer.  My family could not really afford to travel until I was in college.  San Antonio and Santa Fe were our favorite places.  Mama and Daddy honeymooned in New Orleans and when I finally went there with my husband for a wedding anniversary I understood why they loved it so.  As a little kid I always wanted a View-Master.  For those too young to remember, it was a specially formatted stereoscope that had 3-D color images you could rotate and one could “visit” beautiful places.  In the sixth grade my father helped me sell the most chocolate in my school so I could win the grand prize: an original Atari I think the year it came out.  There was no way we could have afforded it, but Daddy made time every night after work and my school to drive me all around so I could sell candy.  I remember some folks looking relieved when they peered out of their doors and found him standing very protectively to the side of me.  I could not possibly have won without all of my father’s hard work.  I remember some of the first games like Pong (which was sort of like tennis or ping pong) and it was so primitive one could literally walk away from the controller and still be playing.  I recall playing Space Invaders a lot.  As a teenager during the height of video arcades I would not date a boy again who only wanted me to watch HIM play.  Fast forward to when I was in college and I fell in love with the Sony Playstation.  Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft was my idol, and like a true video game geek I would plant myself in front of the TV whenever I had a day off from work and play for hours.  I prided myself on never using “cheats” and I loved solving the complex puzzles in exotic locations like the ruins in Egypt and Cambodia.  I will never forget the triumph I felt (after playing for hours and hours and dying and dying and dying) when I discovered the invisible bridge to reach the end of the first Tomb Raider episode.  It was literally a leap of blind faith and I remember the drop off the cliff into nothing giving me slight vertigo.  Now I am a wife and mother and my sweet husband let me turn our two car garage into a “barcade.”  It has a glow in the dark blue floor, blue lights with a disco ball on the ceiling, and wolf bar mirrors covering every wall.  My mother’s 118 year old baby grand is mounted on the wall behind the bar (so we have a “piano” bar.)  I have a custom 60 in 1 old school standup arcade (with classics like Centepede, Frogger, Galaga, all the Pac-Man versions, etc.)  We also have a blue light air hockey table and blue light Skeeball machine.  I have an original Arkanoid cocktail version (sit down) I got in the ’90’s and, thanks to our little girl I discovered magnetic darts.  Also thanks to our little one we have a “Cruis’n World” driving game which we all love!  You can drive over the London Bridge, by the Eiffel Tower, under the ocean in Hawaii and more.  Truthfully I have never been a workout fanatic and I am NOT a group class taker.  I prefer to walk, jog, or play tennis.  The loner in me decided to try a Virtual Reality machine to be inspired to exercise at home.  This thing instantly transports you anywhere:  from Easter Island, to the Great Wall of China, and even the surface of Mars!  The competetive gamer in me NEEDS to hit every target (so I get my heart rate up.)  Thankfully they have different intensity levels since I have let myself get out of shape.  Add to that every conceivable type of music:  from 70’s disco funk to 80’s rock and punk, plus classical, Latin, hip hop; you name it.  I am so hooked!  The American technologist Ramez Naam said, “In a VR setting, you tilt your head up, and you really have the vertigo and the sense that it goes up to infinity, and it’s like you’re in New York City or Dubai, and you’re looking up at a giant skyscraper.  You have a sense of awe.”  That is exactly how I feel when I put on that headset, pick up the controllers, and get ready to embark upon my next adventure … a sense of awe with my eyes through the window.