If only artist David Hockney knew the lengths I take to see his iPad work. Would he sell me a priceless sketch on the cheap (after all, he doesn’t really need the money anymore)? Living outside New York City grants me access to some of the best art museums in the world, but interestingly, not to Hockney’s drawings. After living in California for years, he’s now settled back in the Mother Land and exhibits only in areas that are within a three-hour car ride, Chunnel trip or flight from his home: England, France, and Denmark.

Hockney will be showing his latest iPad art at an exhibit hosted by the Royal Academy of Art in London during the first few months of 2012, part of a cultural kickoff to get the world’s eyeballs on the rainy city with the big clock and all those red buses as it prepares to host the Summer Olympics. And guess what? We’re thinking of going. Never mind that we went to Paris in January to see his Fleurs Fraiches exhibit at Fondation Pierre Berge Yves Saint Laurent or that we were in London in December 2009 sipping pints and noshing on bangers and mash.

Hockney’s newest doodles focus on winter turning to spring. The iPad with its dynamic nature and ability to capture fluid light so well is the perfect vehicle for distilling one of our most remarkable and returning transformations. Spring surfacing through winter’s cold crust is particularly near and dear to me; I can’t stand winter despite being from the Snow Belt and I beg for spring’s arrival the way 11-year-old girls scream for Justin Bieber.

The 30-something in me who listens to grunge music too loudly at work says the very nature of travel is going just to go. You don’t need a reason. The 30-something in me who has a fat mortgage to maintain says travel is great, but so is a roof over your head and multiple digits in your 401k.

There’s no rational or financially sound reason for schlepping to London—a city I’ve now visited three times (and can even offer pub recommendations)—and see the work of an artist I just enjoyed five months ago the last time I hopped across the Atlantic. Except that we can…and we want to. Mike’s already trying to figure out if his third time to England could at long last include a jaunt to Stonehenge, a prehistoric circle of rocks he’s wanted to see for years yet somehow never manages to make it on to the travel itinerary. My goal is far simpler: to be served tea with baked beans, scrambled eggs and bacon. Yes, I can eat that here, but it doesn’t feel like a traditional English breakfast when consumed at a diner in New Jersey where people talk like Joey Buttafuoco—it’s just fried food I really shouldn’t be eating. Besides, I don’t need justification to visit London again—it’s like seeing an old friend. You always make the time.