The Marriott Northwest lobby. How does one go about describing it? Open Atrium. Bubbling fountain. Plants and what appear to be street lamps every 10 feet apart. A home away from home?

In a way. It's a different home. Soap and toiletries come in sizes that make one feel like a giant when it holding them in the palm of one's hand. Hanagers with miniture hooks so as not to be stolen. Towels are plentiful. Bed that makes itself on daily. There's free HBO. There's the idea that someone else has been in this room before. There's the sound of others in rooms next to you or the floor above. Somewhere deep in the back of the mind, no matter how great of a bed it is, it's not like the one that awaits for you at home.

There are the fake friends. The people you get to know at the rental car stand to the the lady that checks you in at the hotel front desk. We dance around the same questions every week as if they are new. How's the weather? You here long? The invetable "how's it going?" You start these farfetched relationships because it's something you lack on the road. Relationships. Yes there are coworkers and some you very well maybe come great friends with, but as the sun sets and the lights at the office dim, they are still coworkers. Fake smiles out weighing the genuine ones from time to time.

We are out on the road because we have plans for a better life. Travel benefits to treat ourself to a vacation. In a demanding job position with hopes it not only brings us wealth, but recognition. Plans of an early retirement or providing a lifestyle for one's family. A lifestyle to be enjoyed and creates opportunities for your children. In the back of our heads we have our grand plan laid out. Like Augusta before the Masters it appears to be perferctly laid out. Life is never truly known and the outcome is never clearly realized until it's there. There are the divits that still exist before the start of the tourney, the unexpectant thunderstorm, or a greenskeeper that quits. We may have to stay on the road longer due to the inability to find another job. We may stay on the road because what was home becomes more foreign with the passing years. I have a plan. But I can't help but look around at the button up shirt blackberry clones sipping their gin and tonics and wonder what happened.

These men seem so different than me, but are they? Willing to sacrifice a life at home. Willing to put in long hours. Willing to memorize any restaraunts within a 5 mile radius. I often think that every year they make the same resolution "This will be the last year I'm on the road." A promise that is never kept.

"Been so long since I seen your face
Or felt a part of this human race
I've been living out of this here suitcase for way too long
A man needs something he can hold onto
A nine pound hammer or a woman like you
Either one of them things will do"
Ray LaMontagne "Jolene"