Ask Yunji

Dear Yunji,

I want to get away during spring break.  However, I don't think my budget will let me get away very far this year.  Where should I go?

Wistful in Washington

Dear Wistful,

It may be you don't need to go anywhere at all.  What you might really need is an unreasonably exotic place to think about.  It should be a place you know you'll never actually visit because it is too far and expensive, and too suited to your own individual taste so that none of your friends would willingly go with you.  It should be a place where the prospect of visiting it, like dating a distant crush, is highly likely to be far more romantic than the reality of it.

For me, this place is Dollywood.  Dollywood - where the banjos never stop singing and bluegrass notes ring out from the Great Smoky Mountains to celebrate log rides, ham n' beans, and skillet-fried cornbread.  When it's the nth hour in the library, or when the statutes start swimming on the page, it helps clear my mind to imagine spending a sunny day riding the Dizzy Disk or visiting Dolly's Home-on-Wheels - with a fried drumstick in my hand the entire time.

I will probably never go to Dollywood.  I know few people in Tennessee, and even fewer enthusiasts of Dolly Parton.  However, I like the idea of the place.  Everyone needs a Dollywood she can turn to.  For some of us, that place may be the cafés of St. Germain des Prés, or on some big waves in Hawaii.  For others, Dollywood may simply be the front row seats to Thunder from Down Under.  It doesn't matter.  Unlike airfare, gas, and lodgings, dreams (or daydreams of faraway places) are always free.

Sincerely,

Yunji