Another Day in the Country
The traveling bug
© Another Day in the Country
It wasn’t until I was in my late 40s that I realized I loved to travel — see what was just around the corner or across the pond; new faces, new places, new landscapes, and new photographs to remember them by.
The first 40-some years of my life, I felt I’d been forced to travel too much, beginning with an intrepid journey, in an old Model A, that my parents took from Lodi, California (where I was born), back to Ramona (where my feet are now planted).
That was quite the epic journey for two 20-year-olds who’d never before been out of the state.
My father was a fastidious man, always prepared, always ready to counter dirt or disorganization.
My sister inherited some of those skills from him. She doesn’t particularly like traveling. I’m not sure about Dad. I do know that he was no fun to travel with, and so I grew up thinking that “going somewhere” was too fraught with peril to hope for enjoyment. It was just to be endured.
Then I found myself in my early 50s, a single parent with children launching, and I was offered a job that required and even paid for me to travel.
It was the very best kind of travel, where someone else plans the place and the agenda and provides transportation and translators. I just had to show up with my camera and writing skills.
It was an adventure! Was it always fun? Of course not! Sometimes, the lodging was horrific, the toilets were a nightmare, the food less than ideal — but, oh, the beautiful people, the landscape, the art. It was wonderful!
Travel is always an enrichment — even going to a different city, a new state. You see things you’ve never seen, taste something different, and experience a new point of view.
You don’t have to go far to travel to a new place. On a small scale, my sister and I sometimes choose a town on the map that we have never been to — no more than two or three hours away — and go find it. It’s what we call a small-town adventure, like the day we visited Kipp.
We always hope to find some little restaurant or an unusual feature, a treasure to recall from that place. We’ve rarely been disappointed, and we’re home by supper.
The public library that I frequent has a cart in the foyer with free books on it. I can’t resist looking to see whether there’s some unique treasure I might need.
Last week, I picked up a book because of its uniquely beautiful cover called “Rome.” It was one of a series evidently of Time/Life books featuring great cities of the world.
My grandson is about to graduate from high school, and my daughter thinks we should travel somewhere unusual to celebrate this milestone.
I was thinking more like, do this when he graduates from college, but who knows whether I’ll be around to participate, so “do it now” is our motto.
Then again, should we send this man-child off to Europe with his cousin to travel a bit on his own? Even though Baba (that’s me) likes to travel, perhaps it’s his turn to explore the world on his own first big jaunt away.
I don’t know whether Dagfinnr is all that eager to go anywhere. Going away to a strange university is enough of an adventure for him to contemplate. But his mother, who’d already been to far-off Norway by his age, thinks it’s a good idea.
“What about Paris?” she wants to know.
“Look into it,” I say, trying to be supportive.
I do know — as the matriarch supporting this venture — that my body, my small savings account, and my energy have only one big adventure like Europe in them. And I’ve never been to Europe.
Meanwhile, I turn the pages of the book I’ve just found, with the big word “DISCARD” stamped on the first page, and think, “What about Rome?”
“The railway from Florence to Rome runs through some of the most beautiful country in the world,” I read, “but it’s a long journey, and after three hours you have had enough.”
Photographs in the book are sepia toned. In fact, the pages of the book are sepia toned from age. This book was published more than 50 years ago. It’s out of date, as are so many things.
What never is out of date are the people I’ve met in my travels, knowing that I’d most likely never see them in real life again once I’d left their place on earth.
Their faces reside in frames on the shelves of my home, in the unusual food they taught me to make for lunch, and in my memories.
Simple circumstances and wholesome sustenance live on now that their foods and phrases are part of my routine, my menu, my life, right here in Ramona, population 100, plus or minus.
If it’s up to me to plan this next big family excursion abroad, it’ll never happen. However, it’s another day in the country, and what better way to spend it than doing another one of our day trips?