Why Travel

 

  Some people hate driving. I love it. Any time, and where. People who hate to drive end up getting speeding tickets. I just get lost. The great thing about retirement is that we can take extra days to drive east to see the kids. Who would have thought Indiana could be so fascinating? Once you get off the Interstate you find out. 

  The other great thing is that you have time and funds to go to Europe where our ancestors came from. So we visited Ireland (me) and Sweden and Scotland (Teresa) and checked them off the list. Next we did France so I could learn that my years of studying the French language had been a waste of time. Next was England. The language barrier was much lower there. There was nothing about England I didn't like. Then to Spain so we could fulfill Teresa's dream of walking the 500 mile Camino de Santiago. Except we had let so many years slip by we had to content ourselves with hiking just 40 miles and spending the rest of the time in Barcelona, Andalusia, and Madrid.

  We slipped Greece in there at some point. There was nothing about Greece I didn’t like either, but that may have been because our Greek friend Alex was along to translate. So we were getting a lot of Europe checked off the list. Now it was Italy's turn. People kept telling us Italy was primo. The best. Should we do a hiking tour of the hill towns? That was our first thought. But then people would always be asking: did you see Rome, did you see Florence. Oh, it's a shame you missed the canals of Venice. You'll have to go back.

  So we bit the bullet and signed up for a tour. We had  only done one tour before. It was on a boat on the Columbia River. We had our own cabin. We could eat at the buffet and not in the stuffy dining room. We could poke around the little towns along the route. There was a soft serve ice cream machine available 24/7. My only complaint as that it was expensive. My friend Steve always says "You can afford it," but I was tortured by the thought that we could have rented a motor boat and done the trip for the half the cost, though without the ice cream machine of course.

  This bus tour we were taking in Italy would hit the big three, Venice, Florence and Rome over nine days. We had been advised to get to Venice a couple of days early, which we did. We had two days on our own to walk around this unique city. We had one more day in Venice with our tour group then traveled on to Florence for a day and a half. This was not long enough to see Florence, but we could have taken a longer tour.

  We liked Rome best. We saw the Colosseum and the Vatican with the group. After three days the tour was over and everyone flew home except us. We spent another day in Rome and on our last day took the train to the nearby hill town of Orvieto. So we've seen the main things people think of when Italy is mentioned. If anyone asks if we've been to Sicily I'm going to pretend I'm hard of hearing, which I am.

  Would we go back. Yes, if I could be put to sleep for the flight. Or if they build a tunnel to Europe. I hear blimps are coming back. Top speed is 100 mph. I could get a couple of books read during the thirty hour flight. Then there's the question of tour versus do-it-ourselves. If I could ignore the price tag, I'd take a tour. It eliminates 90% of the anxiety of travel. Maybe we could do a hybrid like we did this time: part tour, part on our own.

 The big question is do we even need to go to Europe again. I really don't know. I think I travel so I have something to say to people when they ask if we have any trips planned. They listen politely to my chatter then I'll ask them about their interests, baking, astrophysics, pickle ball...

  We're talking about a hike along England's Thames River. At least the terrain is as flat as Roseau County and we speak the language. And first class seats don't cost that much.

Move over Teresa, we're going to Thief River, first class.