One of my most vivid memories from the family vacations of my youth was a comment from my dad I came to expect each time we traveled.

 

At some point during the trip, no matter how long or how far, he would get the distant look of home in his eyes, as if he were longing to be there instead of here, wherever “here” happened to be.

 

He would then issue the following statement, “No bed sleeps as good as my bed.”

 

I was always both shocked and amused by the expression.  I loved to travel.  As a young boy in rural North Mississippi, I longed to see the world contained within the World Book Encyclopedias that inhabited my bedroom bookshelves.

 

I savored every adventure that came with those childhood trips, which usually involved the beach and far too little sunscreen.  In my overcooked state, I was always baffled by the fact that my father wanted to be back home when there was still so much to see.

 

As a young man and the oldest boy on the family farm, he had joined the Navy to get away and see the world.  He did that, seeing Japan, the Philippines, and Australia along the way.  Then he came back home, got married, and settled down on the farm where he had been raised.

 

My parents made their home there, and it’s where I was raised as well.  I loved that farm and can think of no better place for a boy that loved the outdoors to grow into a young man.  However, the wanderlust that grew within me and is still alive today led me away, first away to college and eventually away to Meridian to start a family of my own.

After the kids were grown, G and I felt a pull to the farm in Winston County where we now live.  We felt drawn to the farm.  It was an attraction that I’ve written about before, an attraction that was palpable.

 

However, during both my time in Meridian and my time at the farm, I’ve never lost my desire to travel.  I still love experiencing new places, especially with family and friends.  However, I must admit that I have felt a lot like my father’s son this week.

 

As I write this, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Las Vegas at the end of the first evening of a weeklong work trip.  Settling into my bed last night, I found Dad’s words echoing through my mind: “No bed sleeps as good as my bed.”

 

Vegas has never been a destination of choice for me.  Yes, I love great music, but I would much rather experience that in an amphitheater in the mountains somewhere.  Big Sky, Montana, comes to mind.

 

If I look far enough into the distance out of my hotel room window, I can see mountains, and I long to be there instead, hiking, hunting or fishing.  But alas, I’m hotel and convention center bound for the week.

 

Before I finally drifted off to sleep that night, I found myself thinking not of my bed at home — although that’s what started me dreaming in this direction)— but instead of some of my most favorite “beds” while traveling.

 

A clear theme quickly began to emerge—beds under the stars, or at least closer to them, won out.  Here are a few of the outdoor places in which I’ve enjoyed a sleep surpassing that of home.

 

First, the Deep Gap Shelter along the Appalachian Trail in Georgia on March 12, 2019.  I can still remember the feeling of unrolling my sleeping pad and sleeping bag at the end of a tough 15-mile hike carrying a 30-plus pound pack.  There’s not a better feeling in the world.

 

The cool evening air mixed with the combination of my exhaustion and sated hunger made for perfect sleeping conditions, and I was sound asleep before the last bit of light disappeared in the gloaming of the shelter.  I slept like a baby that night, a very tired baby.

 

Next, the “A-Frame” Cabin at the Lodge at Palisades Creek in Irwin, Idaho, during Memorial Day weekend of 2022.  The cabin is situated at the confluence of Palisades Creek and the South Fork of the Snake River.  It is tucked away, like something straight from Tolkien’s Shire, in a wooded lot between the creek and the river.

 

My bedroom windows faced Palisades Creek and, although it dipped into the 30s each night, I cracked my window just enough to allow the sounds of the swollen creek to serve as my bedtime lullaby.

 

The sound of the water flowing over rocks in the creek mere feet away from my bed was not only sleep inducing, it was “drool on the pillow” sleep inducing.  To this day, I use a noise machine app when I travel to drown out hotel noise in the night and my sound of choice is most often that of a mountain stream.

 

Ultimately, it seems that I am my father’s son as I have come to believe, like him, that “no bed sleeps as good as my bed.”  However, it seems that for me, that bed doesn’t necessarily have to be the one in my bedroom at the farm.  It can be anywhere underneath the stars and, preferably alongside a mountain stream.

 

Until next time, here’s to unrolling a sleeping bag under the stars, to bunking stream side, and here’s to seeing you out there—sleeping soundly—in our great outdoors.