Why Travel? A Background

I was going to jump in with a post about the transportation issues presented in going to different countries than you're used to, but that will be a future post instead. Also, I'm hoping to post at least once per month, but looking at twice per month. 

Instead, today I thought I'd post about my history of travel and why I've come to love it so much.

My dad was Air Force, which for many kids would have meant a lot of travel and moving, but he left the AF when I was young. I was born in California, which is where my dad was stationed (Travis Air Force Base, near Fairfield), but both of my parents had family in Oregon, so they ultimately moved us back to Salem, Oregon, which was a bit of a mid-point between the two families.

Eventually, my dad took a job in Maryland, so we moved there, and then a few years later we almost moved to England. We were packed up and ready to go when he learned that where we were going I would have to be sent to boarding school. He ended up staying at his job and we didn't move, but about a year after that he found a job in Colorado, so that's where we ended up and where I live now.

Why is this relevant? Travel for our family was usually family-centric. I flew as an unaccompanied minor at eleven to visit my aunt and uncle, which was a huge adventure for me (and my family, because unbeknownst to me, there had been a terrorist threat, so while I blissfully watched the clouds and read my book, worried family were bookended between California and Maryland, wondering if they'd ever see me again). Other than the flight from Oregon to Maryland when we moved there, that was my only flight. I had also taken a train ride between Oregon and California with my grandmother to visit her mom and sisters. On that trip, we got stopped by snow in the mountains. The reason this sticks out to me, considering I was only about five or six at the time, was the long, long wait while they cleared the tracks, and the lovely ball of snow brought to me by an usher on the train, so I could build a tiny snowman on my tray.

Snowman Clipart by OCAL, clker.com

We simply couldn't afford to do anything outside of those trips--I believe the family members paid for my trips in these circumstances--so we didn't start visiting family in Oregon and California again until we lived in Colorado and could do a road trip. But my parents liked doing local things and getting us kids out of the house, which meant going to, for example, the Baltimore Aquarium, Gettysburg, Hershey Park, Garden of the Gods, the D.C. zoo, Mesa Verde, Chesapeake Bay, and many other places. My dad enjoyed photography, but wrangling five kids took two parents, so we always had a few photos of these places, but I imagine he would have loved to take more.

My dad also traveled a lot for work, mostly to England and Virginia (after our move to Colorado). He didn't love it, but it was part of the job. I thought it was fascinating that he got to go on trips, and I was determined that I would have a job that involved travel when I grew up. (I also wanted to have a briefcase, so there ya' go). 

Lo and behold, the man I married would eventually end up with a job where he had to travel. His trips regularly took him to England, Australia, Singapore, Virginia, plus various other states for occasional training. It's cheap to travel to different countries from the UK, so he got to do that on the weekends, too. I had my own work and school, so I stayed behind and listened to his stories, looked at his photos, got my souvenirs. And then we had kids, so I continued to stay behind. But I still desperately wanted to travel.

Let's be honest: I was insanely jealous of the experiences he got to have.

My first time traveling out of the country was when I was eighteen, which was also the year of my first road trip to Texas to meet my husband's (to-be, at the time) family. A high school friend's family paid for me to go to San Diego with them, where they had family, before my marriage later that summer. We went with my friend's older cousins to Tijuana, Mexico so we could drink at the bars, where it was legal. (Or, at the very least, allowed by those who owned the bars). As we were slumming it at bars and clubs, we couldn't have been in the nicest part of town, and I was shocked and saddened by what I saw. There were a lot of people lining the streets with wares on blankets between the border and whatever street we went to. There were also a lot of people trying to sell sick dogs (and a few cats, but it was mostly dogs). While I'd grown up fairly poor, I had never seen this level of poverty, even driving through D.C. There were quite a few children with rolls of Mentos in boxes who approached us as we walked. One kid repeatedly stepped in front of me and held them out, and after repeatedly politely turning him down, I finally firmly said, "NO!" and stepped around him. As I walked away, I heard him working up spit (hhhhhhk) and spun around before he could spit on me.

The thing is, while there were fascinating things to look at in terms of the buildings and the hints of culture that had trickled into this very tourist-aimed area, my takeaway was really about the poverty and way of life I'd seen. I still think about it. I know that this single street didn't fully reflect Mexico or even Tijuana, but I think those images were what I thought of when it came to traveling there. It wouldn't be until I had more exposure to all the wonderful things about Mexico that I'd be able to better file it all away and work my way around to wanting to really experience the culture. Having had this eye-opening experience, though, helped me not to be cocky about travel, to want to learn more before going anywhere, and understanding that I was going to someone else's country to experience their world, not to try to bring my world and expectations with me and inflict that on others. Which may sound weird, but I feel that's exactly what a lot of American tourists do. I don't want to find America in other places; I want to experience what they offer, good and bad.

I didn't need my passport for that walk across the border in 1996, and I wouldn't get my first passport until I was in my forties. This was despite my husband's job offering to bring me out with him to Australia when they wanted him to stay there the entire summer while an employee was on walkabout and just the opportunity I could have had if we'd been willing to pay my way on any of his trips. We really didn't know what the cost would be or if we could afford it, being a young couple with a mortgage (and at one point undergoing the expense of IVF), so we just never looked at it. Looking back, this was a huge series of missed opportunities, but I also had a job to keep and college work to keep up on. Then, of course, the kiddos.

I was invited out to England for a friend's wedding, but the wedding would have been near the end of my pregnancy, so it wasn't something I could do. I'd had bleeding earlier in the pregnancy, and was advised not to take an international trip.

Another missed opportunity.

Instead, we took road trips to Oregon, California, Kansas, Indiana, Las Vegas, Texas, Florida, D.C., and Oklahoma (once, for a wedding). We took in tourist sights, like the Grand Canyon, Multnomah Falls, Disneyland, Disney World, the Oregon Coast, etc. I loved these trips, and I learned a love of photographing nature and the other sights. (I already knew I loved taking photos, but they were usually of people before that). 

As the kids got more mobile, I decided to explore the state with them (to the extent that allowed). With my husband traveling so much, I had to keep them busy. And my husband and I had moved to Oregon for one year at the beginning of our marriage (that's where we got married), but decided we'd rather come back to Colorado. We realized after we got back that we'd spent so much time working that we'd never traveled around Oregon to see the various sights. Or up to Washington state, where I'd never been. We'd missed out on this opportunity to explore, because we hadn't intended to move back so soon.

I took the kids to Bent's Old Fort, Red Rocks, Garden of the Gods (repeatedly), Casa Bonita, art galleries, museums, and everything we could take in. We collected pins on these little khaki vests I'd found them. 

Fast forward to my forties, and our kids were old enough that we could go on trips and leave them with friends or family. The first place my husband and I went was Savannah, Georgia. I had become obsessed with wanting to see it. So much so that we had named our daughter Savannah. It was amazing! There was so much to see and photograph, to taste and experience. I love trying new food, hearing about the history of a place, studying its architecture, and so much more.

Then I went to New Orleans with my sister and a friend of hers. Again, so much to see and do. Great food, and I got to see the mighty Mississippi in person, to stand on its banks after hearing about it since childhood.

What really got us was my dad abruptly being diagnosed with ALS. From there, he lived another 4 1/2 years, working until he couldn't anymore, and then being homebound. My parents had talked about doing things after retirement, after the kids were out, etc. They never got to do any of what they'd talked about. Instead, they got one final train trip to the Oregon coast for him to say his goodbyes.

This taught us that putting things off until after retirement, after the kids move out, after, after, after might be a recipe for never doing the things you want to do. It was time to get my passport.

My first international trip with my passport was a return to Mexico, this time to Playa del Carmen. I chose there, because I wanted to see ruins. That's probably something else you should know about me: I love ruins. From old, wooden homesteads on the Colorado plains to ancient abbey walls in Yorkshire, England, I love a ruin. An intact castle? Okay, I guess. The ruins of a castle, where I get to imagine what it was like? Yes, please! 

Another thing you should know about me is that my life is never dull. Which translates to my trips never being dull. Things always happen. I attract weird things. But I also take in a lot of things other people don't necessarily even see. It's how I've always been. I'm not Sean from Psych, but I do see and retain things to a crazy level sometimes. 

I started doing posts on trips to basically upload what had happened that day so I could hopefully quiet my mind enough to go to sleep, and it turned out people liked those posts. Which actually, funnily enough, scared me away from doing them for a while. I was afraid they wouldn't stand up to people's expectations. But I liked being able to look back on my posts when they popped up in memories, and I couldn't do that if I didn't post them. Plus, sometimes people shared their experiences in the same place or in similar circumstances in the comments, and it was fun to hear those stories.

Now here I am, a bunch of diagnoses later, looking down the barrel of limited time where I'll be physically capable of any significant travel and of being mobile on those trips, and we've determined that we enjoy traveling together and I end up with a billion photos from each place because there's so much to see and so much I want to have a visual reminder of. And I get to show those places to people who can't travel and see them themselves. 

And here we are.

I'll be recapping previous trips and documenting new trips as we go forward. Because I have no intentions of ceasing travel until I've seen the things I want to see, met the people I want to meet, tasted the foods I want to taste, experienced the things I want to experience, and photographed all the amazing things there are to photograph.