Imminent Travels

When Jerry and I were planning to get married, I told him that while I don't care much for material possessions, upscale dining, fancy jewelry, designer clothing or any of the other trappings of the upper middle class, the one luxury that is important to me is being able to travel and see the world. Although he'd done some traveling already, I don't think it was very high on his list of priorities. But I had dreams of all the places I wanted to go and the things I wanted to see in life, and it was important that my husband understand that about me.

Even though travel wasn't by any means as important to Jerry as it was to me, he indulged me in my journeys. Somewhere along the way (I credit Argentina), he grew to love them, as well. In the six years we've been married, we've been to the Caribbean, Argentina, France, Great Britain and the U.S. west coast.

This fall, we're fulfulling a dream by traveling to Egypt and Israel. Although it's quickly approaching, it just doesn't seem real to me yet. The ruins we'll be visiting are older than anything I've ever seen. I've learned about the history of these places since I was a very young child; they've always just been these far-away lands where ancient Biblical events occurred, but in a few weeks time, we'll actually be trodding the same soil on which those events took place.

The part of the world we'll be visiting isn't often peaceful, so we don't know whether we'll ever go back after this visit. We'll take lots of pictures, and I'll post many of them here. Right now I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we'll be there soon.

A New Travel Journal

Some of my fondest memories of childhood are of the various camping trips we took in the southwestern United States and the occasional summers with my grandmother in California. Other than that, we didn't do a lot of traveling when I was growing up. I was an avid reader, though, and spent a great deal of my time reading about and imagining myself in faraway lands.

Following my senior year in college, my younger sister and I concocted this half-baked plan to backpack through Europe for five weeks. Oh, how naive we were! Neither one of us had ever been out of the country or traveled on our own, and the Internet wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now, so we did very little research or planning before we went. We landed in Germany with a few changes of clothes, a guidebook, not a lot of cash, no friends and no idea of where we'd be staying that night. I won't sugarcoat: we fought and were stressed at times. Even so, I have the most wonderful memories from that experience because we learned so much about the places we visited, met a fair number of interesting people and managed to have a great deal of fun in spite of our lack of traveling expertise or sophistication. Somewhere along the way, I gained a sense of confidence and self-reliance I'm not sure I'd have otherwise. I also discovered that I love to travel.

I kept a journal of that trip and still enjoy going back to read it sometimes. I've always wished I could find some cohesive way to share my travel experiences with friends and family. Just sending a bunch of pictures isn't enough for me. Not all pictures speak a thousand words; some require a little context. It occurred to me recently that a blog might be just the solution I'm looking for - pictures and text, easily accessible to most of my friends and family.

So welcome to my new travel blog. The world is vast and exciting, and we always manage to meet the most wonderful people wherever we go. I'm so glad you could join us!