I’d like to thank everyone who read my last post. I got some positive feedback from people who related, empathize, or just appreciated the honesty. It’s nice to know, someone’s reading what I write, and possibly what I write speaks to them. Given that, we may want to consider, I’ve had 21 subscribers for awhile now, and it’s getting a little old. Do ya think we can do something about that?

Anyhow, I ended my last post talking about binge watching travel videos on YouTube, and one of my favorites is Rick Steves. He’s got a really good video called “Why We Travel.” Of course that leads me to the question, why do I travel? With the possibility of a trip to Prague in August, I thought I’d try answering that question for myself, here, for you to read.

When I first started traveling, it was all about going somewhere, and seeing things. Nothing more than checking places and things off a list.

My father, wasted his life away on a bar stool. I got my first taste of this as a child. Where we grew up there was no trash pickup, you’d take your trash to the dump. So, every Saturday our father would make me and my brother load the trash in the back of the car, and we’d go to the dump. Afterwards, we’d go to the bar, and we’d sit for hours. We were like 10, 11 years old, and we’d be in the bars for hours! Well, as luck would have it, I turned out just like him, for a short while anyhow. I spent a couple of lifetimes in bars, and when I finally gave it up, I was determined to see something, as much as I could.

Having a “bucket list” of places to go and things to do, is an absolute must, and ya gotta check them off your list.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do,” once mused Mark Twain. “So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

With time and thoughtfulness, “going places and seeing things” has evolved into an appreciation, for where I was, and where I am.

I looked up the definition of appreciation:

1. recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.

2. a full understanding of a situation.

I looked it up because I wasn’t sure if “appreciation” fully defines what I am talking about. And, it doesn’t.

I remember sitting on the deck of a riverboat at sunset, cruising up the Mekong River from Saigon to Phenom Pehn. This was our last big trip before Covid-19. All day the Mekong was alive with activity, mostly barges and fishing boats, children playing on the banks of the river near their villages. At night, as the sun sets, the river would slowly go to sleep. I’m alone, with my thoughts, the dull hum of the boat’s engine, and the sound of the water lapping against the bow of the boat. The sunset, is mesmerizing.

What word defines, when appreciation moves you to tears? I am 54. My father was 54 when he died. He was alone and broken. That could have been me. And now, years later, here I am, on the Mekong River with Day and our friends K and J, and I think to myself, “wow, you’ve made it, out of the darkness, out of the abyss.”

I like going places, seeing things and doing things. I like to check things off my bucket list. But doing so, allows me to be thoughtful and reflective. I’ve learned to be grateful for all I have, and where I am, never forgetting, where I’ve been. An appreciation moved to joyful tears.

More to come,
Luv ya,
Curly