This evening here in Florida we are again together for a wonderful homely meal of soup and salads from the garden and amazing conversation. Brother Brooks and Carolyn are here for two weeks. They live on the other side of the country and for many years, long before any of us retired, we have gotten together twice a year. One of those annual visits with each other have been to go to some fantastic place.
We are getting older and the prospect of spending long hours folded up on airplanes is less appealing. Our trip this year was one to explore the end of the Lewis and Clark expedition in Oregon. We flew there, and now Brooks and Carolyn have come east to enjoy some Florida sunshine and the magic of life in the Green Swamp. We take interesting day trips and come home evenings.
It was always my pleasure to plan the trips, arranging for a rental house and car, researching everything to do and see. Italy! (multiple times and places), France, New Zealand, Alaska..
Tonight we sit around the table, the candles burning low and our bellies full and we recall some of those details (and what we ate) on those amazing trips. All we need to do is utter some word, and we are off on the flood of wonderful memories. "Flat white" - and we are recalling how on our New Zealand trip we stopped every morning to buy coffee with hot milk. And remember the blue penguins that arrived every night flopping through the surf to scurry back to their nests?
During those years I also made annual trips with my dearest friend, Marie, never on any planned tours, to exotic places in central and south America. Those were the rugged and just dangerous enough treks to the Amazon, the Galapagos, remote places in Costa Rica and Panama, Peru and Brazil. We would look at each other upon arrival wherever it was and say, "We're here!" In many ways my trips with Marie were the most challenging, and also the most truly carefree. We had no family to please or look out for - it was just purely us. If we chose to walk out by ourselves into the rain forest with a man dressed only in a loin cloth and packing a bow and quiver of spears, we did it because we had the chance to see a harpy eagle. And in what other circumstances would one happily eat guinea pigs?
Our heads are stuffed with these memories, so much more valuable than things. My good friends here are off on a trip to India on Monday. I envy them this and I will be first in line when they get back to hear all the details and view the photos. They are going on a group tour, possibly the best way to go.
Travel is the best for one's mind. I hope to be remembering all the places I've been and all the people and ideas I've met until I'm past ninety-five!
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