Same Road, Different Season

August 23, 2018Judy R Leave a comment

A recent drive across a short stretch of desert in Arizona has me wondering about a classic desert plant, the Saguaro cactus. These tall, prickly plants with their outstretched arms and stand-up-straight trunks, almost human-like, dot the landscape like guardians of the sand. This particular stretch of road west of Phoenix, will soon be a regular drive for us, but for now it’s still rare enough to notice seasonal changes in the landscape.

We drove it in February when the winter was full of cool breezes and the desert landscape was in a seasonal resting mode. Everything looked a little sleepy somehow. The Saguaro were green and healthy then but didn’t seem to reach for the sky.

We drove it again in May. It was unseasonably hot for spring and had been very dry for a long time. Those same Saguaro were looking almost gaunt. The trunks showed signs of drought – a little shriveled. The branches were short, thin and often falling off.

We were back last week in the heat of the summer. The monsoon season is a little more robust than normal. It’s clear the Saguaro love the bright summer sun and the recent thirst-quenching rains. The trunks are fat and green. The branches reach proudly for the blue sky.

I’m excited to see what fall brings to the Saguaro. Will they retain their fat, water-filled bellies? Will the stubby, new branches grow into thick upstretched arms like concert-goers cheering on the band?

Sometimes, going back to the same place can really change your outlook. There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored … go see it in different seasons.

Diversions – The Lonesome Road*

August 21, 2018Greg R Leave a comment

“In the desert, you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain”
— A Horse With No Name by America

The road before us stretches for miles, this oft-traveled section of Route 66 in California, near the Arizona border. Top down, the air cool in the February sun, we smile and sing along to the Eagles “Hotel California.”

The road is ours and ours alone. Most have foregone what was once America’s highway for the Interstates. Today, hurried minivan moms and dads choose to keep their kids entertained with DVDs and tablets, instead of joining in the Alphabet Game and looking outside the window to see the desert for what it is … vast expanses of nothingness … an American West tamed by cowboys, miners and early settlers, yet teeming with life that can be seen by those who slow down and take a look.

A freight train looms in the distance on the tracks paralleling the road, its single headlight growing larger on the horizon. As the big diesel nears, we wave at the engineer. He signals back with a long blast of his harmonious horn. He rumbles by, tank cars filled with oil or some other chemicals; containers filled with consumable products destined for long, low warehouses built on cheap desert land, only to be transferred to trucks bound for your house and mine, ready to be used and thrown away, feeding our lifestyles.

I think about the engineer, and what he sees and thinks as he crosses this great land, day after day. Do others in passing cars wave hello? Or do they whiz by, oblivious to the train’s massive presence. Does he see the beauty of the desert? Or is it just another route on his way home?

For him and us, it is a lonesome road, but in its starkness, there is beauty and serenity that can only be found when you avoid the beaten path.

There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be explored. Go see it.

(*Inspired, as they say, by true events.)

Adventure Begins With an Idea

July 19, 2018Judy R Leave a comment

On New Year’s Day, if you had asked me how my life would be different halfway through the year, I might have responded, “It will be hotter?”

Looking back over the past seven months, I have to admit, it’s difficult to pinpoint any specific moment that caused the incredible changes that have taken place:

The mule seemed to laugh as if he knew what was about to happen.

It started in February with the end of a lifelong dream. I even wrote a blog about it. That led to an unplanned trip, which had Greg and I diverting to a new community near Phoenix, Arizona where our spur-of-the-moment side trip led to a house with a floor plan and a community that we both immediately fell in love with.

Next came a series of conversations that ended with a decision to turn our lives upside down and change our lives from a living-for-work-and-career mentality to making retirement a priority.

We snapped a picture in front of the model of our future home.

From that perspective, we decided to sell the home we had lovingly created together and spent thousands of dollars customizing and personalizing. We added a trip back to Phoenix in May, signed the papers to build our dream retirement home and put the ball in motion to sell and relocate.

Realtor pictures helped our house sell fast.

Our house sold with lightning speed and instead of moving at the end of the summer or perhaps early fall, we had less than a month to pack! We are already settled into a temporary home while our Arizona dream becomes a reality.

With the whirlwind of life-altering decisions in just the first half of the year, I can’t help but wonder, if someone asked me today, how I would answer, “What will your life be like on New Year’s Eve?”

It is astounding to look back and see the changes that have occurred. Our motives and pace have been questioned by friends and family. Through it all, the one thing that has kept us sane is our ability to talk about everything; to recognize when we are stressed and share the feelings and work through them together; the willingness to laugh through our struggles and comfort each other when the stress gets overwhelming; and the knowledge that no matter what happens, we are together and as a duo we can get through anything.

A cactus is a cheerful, constant reminder of where we are headed.

We ensured that our top priority was always each other and we worked to keep our eyes on the prize. We said goodbye to some things we loved and dreams we had and chose to focus on a new and exciting future with more than a few unknowns. We are opting for the adventure of creating new dreams and making them happen. After all, as Semisonic pointed out in their song, “Closing Time,” every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.

There is a whole world out there waiting to be explored … and every exploration starts with an idea.

Diversions – There’s Something About a Train

July 16, 2018Greg R Leave a comment

There’s something about a train …

I started a new routine this morning that involves commuting from a town 50 miles from my office in the Washington, DC metro area. On the well-appointed Virginia Railway Express train, I felt a bit like Don Draper or any other of the executives who made their way from their homes in Scarsdale or Ossining to Manhattan, minus the blue pall of cigarette smoke. This seemed appropriate given that the house where we moved was built in 1958 and has a decidedly mid-century feel.

As I sat back and viewed the rising sun over the Potomac and beyond the overgrown trees and vines of Northern Virginia, I was reminded about the joys of train travel both on this continent and in Europe. From a comfortable seat, you speed by traffic while viewing the sights.

Sunrise over the Potomac River near Quantico

You hear the wail of the horn as the train approaches a station or grade crossing over the muted conversations of families and friends (or the silence of early morning commuters).

Trains have been a staple of our travels. We booked a sleeper on the overnight Amtrak Auto Train from DC to Florida so that we could have a car with us when we were married in Key West and for the honeymoon return trip. Fall colors dazzled along the Hudson River and Lake Champlain on our journey to Montreal.

In Europe, we’ve taken commuter trains from Frankfurt to Wiesbaden, high speed ICE trains from Munich to Nuremberg, and walked from the train station to the ski slopes in Switzerland. In Venice, we boarded the Frecciarossa for a day trip to Florence. In an earlier life, an English girlfriend and I took the Eurostar from London to Paris … a must-do trip for any train aficionado.

Train travel is not without its pitfalls. In the states, much of the track is owned by the freight lines which can cause some delays as you wait on a side track for a long-running freight to pass. In Europe, drunk passengers can get a bit unruly, but we usually book first class (which isn’t all that much more expensive), which helps keep you away from the riff-raff.

But the benefits certainly outweigh the cons, especially in Germany and Switzerland where timetables are strictly adhered to, and particularly over shorter distances. When you consider suggested check-in times and commutes to and from airports, it is almost faster to take a train from DC to New York than to fly.

Washington Union Station’s Soaring Great Hall

My morning train entered sprawling Union Station, with its soaring Great Hall and the hustle and bustle of commuters scurrying to grab a cab, Uber, or a Metro ride to their offices. Some waited in line for the many Amtrak Northeast Regional and Acela trains headed north. Once again, my mind drifted to scenes from the heyday of the passenger diesels, such as when Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint met and made small talk over Diner-car coffee in “North by Northwest” only to later marry and embrace as the the train suggestively entered a tunnel.

Yep, there’s something about a train.

There’s a whole world out there, waiting to be explored. Go see it … by train.

Passengers disembark one of VRE’s morning trains

Yes You Can!

May 18, 2018Judy R Leave a comment

Greg and I have spent the last few weeks obsessing about a decision we’ve made. We’re a few years from retirement, but we found where we want to retire and we’ve decided to build our retirement home there. It’s a big step that means we will either carry two mortgages, sell our current home or come up with another solution. Since we live and work near Washington, D.C. and want to retire out west, moving into the new house isn’t really an option. So, we’ve spent this time asking ourselves, “Can we do this?” “Should we do this now?” “Are we really making a wise decision?”

Before you ask why this is in a travel blog, you can probably guess that owning two homes would take a serious bite out of our travel budget … and we LIVE to travel! That part of the decision has us asking, “How do we make this work without giving up what we love?”

I’ve mentioned it before … finding the money to travel is a priority choice. If you need to drive an expensive car, you won’t have as much money to travel. If you need to buy loads of expensive shoes, you won’t have as much money to travel. If you need to go out to eat three times a week or buy an expensive latte every morning … well, you get the point.

Our solution is to sell our current home and move into a smaller, less expensive apartment until we can move west. It’s a big step! But perhaps by providence, I’ve seen several reminders this week that pointed out if you don’t take the leap off the cliff, you cannot soar. This is our leap. Sure, it’s scary, but we want to soar. I’m 17 letters into my plan to See the World A to Z … only nine letters to go. I can’t give up now. Greg is also fully vested in the plan. He’s excited to see it through to the end.

We’re giving up a little for a potentially HUGE gain – our dream home in retirement and the continued freedom to see the world. You can do the same! Anyone can. Take a deep breath and take the leap. Soar! After all, there’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored.

You’ll never get there if you don’t start somewhere.

From Exes to Ohs

April 13, 2018Judy R Leave a comment

Greg and I make no secret of the fact that we are each other’s third wife/husband. One of the things we say is that it took three tries to get it right. It’s only half in jest. We both recognize that with age comes a self-awareness and comfort that makes it easier to know what you want … but more importantly, what you won’t put up with anymore.

Our exes didn’t travel, not like we do. Neither of them craved it. When we realized the intensity of our love of travel and experiences, it deepened our attraction for each other and our wanderlust. We went from camping and destination-based driving slogs to exploring downtowns and wandering on backroads. — from Friday and Saturday nights spent swatting bugs by a campfire to toasting friends at our local bar and snacking on brick-oven pizzas.

We mark the places we’ve been together, where we want to go, and where our friends hope to travel.

In my quest to see the world alphabetically, I went from being primarily focused on Europe because it’s the only place my ex would consider, to eyeing locations I’d never even imagined. As we look ahead to this year’s trip (we’re up to “O” in the ABC The World plan), we are excited to be taking our first cruise.

It’s a river cruise on the Danube. Yes, it’s back to Europe, but to the Eastern side. I have a map with pins of the places we’ve been; Eastern Europe is sadly almost entirely pin-less. (Colored pins on the map show where friends want to travel).

Yellow pins are where we’ve been together. Colored pins represent our friends’ bucket list trips. The letters mark our “See the World A to Z” trips.

But we are not sitting around waiting for the cruise date in the fall. We continue to plan and explore and be amazed by our world. We have trips planned to Pittsburgh and its foodie scene, Arizona where our winter visit left us wanting more, and Minneapolis to check out the biggest mall in the US.

I joke that the only reason I have a job is to pay for my next trip, but it’s more truth than jest. I love that moment you see, taste, hear or feel something new. It’s an “Oh” moment for me. “Oh, wow, that’s beautiful!” “Oh, wow, that is delicious!” We’ve both gone from exes to ohs and we aren’t interested in slowing down. After all, there’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored … go find your “Oh” moment.

Excitement and Travel Go Hand-In-Hand

March 9, 2018Judy R Leave a comment

It doesn’t matter where I’m going, I get excited about travel, I mean REALLY excited. I let excitement take over like a kid on Christmas Eve. I giggle. I jump up and down. I can’t sleep. For some trips, the excitement is worse than others.

I barely get any sleep at all before bucket list trips, for instance. Most recently, that happened before the Grand Canyon trip. I bring up that one because I know, as an adult who’s had a share of disappointments in her life, not all trips are going to end the way I want them to, even dream about. The potential for disappointment doesn’t get in the way of my unbridled enthusiasm, though.

So what? You may be wondering. Well, I bring it up because once again I had a sleepless night. Today, we are off to Hershey Park to spend the weekend celebrating my oldest granddaughter’s seventh birthday. While I am excited to spend the day with her (and her brother, sister and mom), that’s only a small part of what kept me awake.

Last night Greg gave up trying to keep my birthday trip a secret and told me where we are going. Before you ask, yes, we go somewhere for our birthdays every year. We love to travel so trips are our gifts to each other and we try (and usually fail) to keep them a secret.

This year, he’s taking me to the Mall of America. I know there are people who prefer high adventure, art museums, spas and so many other things. I like those things, too. But shopping has always been fun for me. I love the adventure of finding new things. I love the visual stimulation and creativity of window and store displays. I love the buzz of other shoppers seeking their own treasures. In other countries, I find stores to be a true and honest snapshot of the culture and sense of style. I don’t BUY a lot, but I love looking … and I’ve never been to the Mall of America.

In addition, he said we should check another bucket list item off on the same trip – go to the airport with nothing but a toothbrush and an ID. It is, he pointed out, a trip to a mall. If we can’t get what we need there, then we probably don’t really need it. With that little added extra, my excitement level meter hit overdrive – and I spent the night tossing and turning.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I often say happiness is a choice. Excitement and happiness go together for me. Anticipation of something you’ve been looking forward to is a powerful mood booster. Whether it’s a stay-cation, a weekend jaunt to see family or a bucket list trip, let yourself feel youthful excitement. Call a friend with giddiness in your voice and share your joy. Put a huge smile on your face and ride the crest of happiness.

After all, there’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored … see it enthusiastically.

The World – A to Z

There's a whole world out there just waiting to be explored.

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