TRAVEL

“I’m a travelin’ man, made a lot of stops, all over the world…”
Ricky Nelson

I love to travel. Give me a ticket on an aero plane; I don’t mind if it’s a fast train, I’ll travel in any way and for any reason. Trains and boat and planes are all okay with me.
Isn’t it amazing how many phrases about traveling are in popular songs? But that just showS that traveling appeals to songwriters as much as it does to regular folks. Not that songwriters aren’t regular folks, but the ones I’ve known have been somewhat outside clinical normalcy. But I digress.

We’ll be piling our crap in the car and heading out on a five hundred mile drive soon. I love where we’re going but, in truth, I love the going part also. It’s always been that way for me. The journey is as interesting and enjoyable as the destination. When I was a young boy I really enjoyed the annual vacation drive to visit the relatives in northern New York. I would get the road map out and check off the little towns as we passed through, noticing all the changes in the landmarks and landscape as we moved along. The expressways weren’t done back then. The interstate system was started but I-81 was still being planned. So our trip followed US104 along Lake Ontario and then on to some smaller county roads until we hooked up with US11 to head North. Even today I can picture the sequence of towns as we made the 250 mile seven hour trip. That same trip can be made in five hours now thanks to highway improvements and additions. But there was a special pleasure when we would stop in the village of Hannibal to buy cokes at the little grocery store to go with the picnic lunch my Mom had packed. On one winter trip we were caught in a night time blizzard near Fulton and had to take refuge in a warm and comforting diner. We drank hot chocolate and ate hot dogs as we waited for the storm to subside. Then my Dad followed a snow plow for quite a distance until we got out of the “lake effect” storm. A lot of the time my brothers, sister and Mom would be sound asleep as we motored along, and my Dad and I would pass the time talking about the route and places we passed. He knew some of the history of the roads and the areas we went through. He told how US11 followed the old trail set up by the Native Americans and French trappers. The trails went from the St. Lawrence River all the way to the Mississippi delta and New Orleans. He talked about the old military turnpikes that crossed the North Country where troops and equipment moved during the Revolutionary, 1812 and Civil wars. Maybe that’s why my interest in and affection for travel is so great.

When we travel now to our place up North I look for variations in the route and stopping places. If our schedule isn’t too rushed we’ll take some time to explore historic sites or towns. Last summer we made a stop at the Erie Canal museum in Syracuse which is a fascinating place. We also like to head off to local wineries for a tasting and to help restock our wine cooler. Since most of our traveling these days is by car we don’t venture too far from the Mid-Atlantic and New England states. Perhaps when my wife retires we’ll head South and West to explore more closely a lot more of the country.

I’ve written in the past about trips we’ve made by air to Las Vegas and Mississippi. We’ve also spent some time in England and California. In a future article I’ll tell you about some trips I made by bus and hitch-hiking when I was a kid in the Air Force. But a memorable trip I made by train might deserve a mention here.

Back in 1966 when I was in the service I decided to visit my brother who was also in the Air Force. I was stationed in Orlando and he was in tech school near Champaign, Illinois. So I bought a train ticket from Florida to Chicago, packed a bag and headed out. The train left Sanford, went up to Jacksonville, crossed over to Alabama and up through Birmingham. Then it went to Memphis and headed on North. Somewhere between Birmingham and Memphis I met some Marines who were fine fellows and they happened to be carrying a liberal supply of adult beverages which they were happy to share. We had a pleasant time engaged in conversation and then someone suggested a game of poker. So for a few hundred miles we had a relatively low stakes game. Since I didn’t have very much money low stakes were all I could handle. But even playing for nickels and dimes proved to be a problem and within a few hours of well lubricated card playing I was dead broke and almost as drunk. When I woke up at the big train station in Chicago I started to panic. I had no money and, as I recall, credit cards and ATM machines weren’t invented yet. I still needed to buy a bus ticket to Champaign and I also needed to find a way to the bus station. As I began to sweat and fret I noticed some paper stuck into the pocket of my uniform shirt. When I pulled the piece of notepaper out I found three ten dollar bills (a pretty good sum back then) and, written on the paper, two words “Semper Fi”. So I was able to take a cab to the bus and the bus to see my brother and I still had a little left over for food and hangover remedies. So since that trip I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the US Marine Corps. And it is just one more example of how I came to love traveling.

Have a fine day.