Annual Letter: Travelin' Fools

In the last six years our children have matured into free-thinking strong-willed people with their own take on the world and their own sometimes furtive ways to explore it...which means, of course, we now long for the simplicity of the “diaper-needs-changing“ days! (No, just kidding; keep yer smelly brats away from us.) They argue politics and social dilemmas, though are still more prone to go on about music (Kayleigh), video games or trivia from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader (Logan), or never get a word in (Andie). In 2001-02 I spent 14 months reading “The Lord of the Rings” to Logan and Kayleigh (Andie read it on her own in about one voracious week) and as much fun as it was, it was the last for bedtime stories. After all those years of herding each one to the couch for the regular pre-bedtime becalming ritual, they seem to be good & diverse readers in their own right. Even though school demands plenty of reading now and they need a break, we’ll see one eating breakfast cereal, groggily reading a copy of Time and know our efforts on that front paid off.

Since 1999 we’ve launched expeditions to Yosemite, Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, Central Florida, and Colorado. We keep dreaming about trips to Hawaii or even a few extra days in $an Franci$co but those remain financially elusive, so we try to concentrate on the good stuff in our backyard and enjoy the delights that come with them. Somebody once said, “fun is like life insurance, the older you get, the more expensive it gets”. We just bought our first new car in 17 years (a Honda Odyssey) and now that we travel with air conditioning, no leaks, and actual room for the family AND stuff.... how did we do it before?? So fun not only gets more expensive, it needs to be more comfortable as well! Getting older isn't all bad...

It was everyone’s initial visit to the Grand Canyon except mine, so I was treated to the “oohhh!” reaction as they first gazed upon nature’s greatest spectacle. Perhaps the only time in many years, if ever, that we all shared the exact same wonderful feeling together, at the same time. We had great hiking weather, topped off by a sighting of nine extremely rare Calif. Condors. We didn’t make it to the river, of course, but getting this bunch out the door is an achievement in itself. It was most special in that it was the last big trip before our kids started turning 18 and moving on. Dad the latent geology teacher goes hog-wild in the desert (perhaps the burning sun does it?). After a few days in Death Valley the kids will never forget what an alluvial fan is, no matter how hard they try.

Our recent trips have included rare visits with our dear old friends the Maggios (who married in college under a cloud of naysayers and who have now celebrated 20+ years); on each visit we catch the infectious enthusiasm for travel that Karen brims with. She’ll pull out guidebooks and toss out ideas faster than we can say “arrivederci.” Someday, we’ll finally manage to afford to join them. We’ve also been the regular guest of our friends the Lews in LA where we get the run of the house and their great hospitality as a base for my old stomping grounds. It’s been difficult to get old friends to come up to our inaccessible location in the far reaches of Middle-Earth, so we try to go to them; an effort that’s always worth it (though we would love to be hosts more often - hint, hint!).



...to be continued...