roads untrodden -- I haven't a clue how or even if I might kick-start those meme things like a Friday Five, but by his pondering an unfettered future of all at once nowhere and everywhere to go, our oldest prods me to mull my life, the placed I'd been sure enough, but also those where life and happenstance simply got in the way until, before I knew it, another road was traded away.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
-- robert frost

Suppose you had that freedom of the not much money of untethered youth, open roads of unknowing in all directions ... where would you go?

partir sur un nowhere

Some I'm sure we just didn't see, some where we stood at the gates but didn't know until later where we'd been, and I expect a lot are those passed flashing past train, truck, bus and car windows in our rush to someplace else; all together, these are the Unseen Planet, the land beyond the circle we draw around our own map, places where there dragons be.

Herein the bittersweet ...

TeledyN's Challenge of unTravelogue:

Blog your guide to five places in your home country where you did not go, but you would have or might still, if only if ...

In your own native lands, 5 places your dharma might have gone had your karma had the go, just for fun, kept within the bounds of your homeland (because you're supposed to know it best!) -- tell us how we get there, what it might cost us, what we should see, and don't forget to tell us why!

I can tell you this much: A few places jump right to mind. Others are warring for my attention, or maybe its just that immanent empty nestness, or maybe its a middle-life's what-if, maybe even because he's half my age and I'm just past half my father's, but I have some thoughts and ideas, only I want to ponder them a bit, savour the notion of that spectre of the open road. Five is a hard number in either quantity or scarcity, and besides, I wanted to give you all equal chance to tell us of your own roads untaken so we can travel them all together.