Travel Tales amongst my Ramblings
True stories of our world-wide journeys interspersed with bits of my real life journey, retired now in Silicon Valley
We’ve been home from Italy for a few days now and I need to write up my stories. But are there any stories? We had no mishaps – the trip nice, the weather perfect. I may have nothing more interesting than a travel brochure description. “Do you want anything from Costco?” My husband, putting together … Continue reading Where Has My Mind Gone?
The southbound 12:07 eased out from the San Francisco station, and I slowly relaxed in sync with the turning wheels. The station had been nervous-making, hectic and crowded except for the one corner that a homeless soul had commandeered while he methodically scratched up one side and then down the other side of his abdomen. … Continue reading Taking the Train
Next Time I’ll Read the Signs. Yosemite. A family road trip just like years ago––only this time my husband and I are old enough to have a free lifetime pass and our sons, both single and childless, are in their 40s. We beat the crowds to the Camp Curry registration desk, where we are greeted … Continue reading Oh Well, I’m Flexible
I forgot––when I picked up that flat box, the last one on the Farmers’ Market table barely filled with green grape-like gooseberries, remembering all the times my mother had mentioned gooseberries and trying to remember what she said about them and then excitedly telling my husband that I definitely wanted to buy it so he … Continue reading I Remember One Week in a June
Stones, my favorite keepsakes. When my suitcase is not at the weight limit, stones make a nice little travel remembrance to bring home. Not from a National Park, mind you. And I'll never take a piece of lava home from Hawaii. Here is why. When I read my Stones story (link) at the Wednesday afternoon … Continue reading Stones Not Collected
Home from Greece, jet-lagged, I move like a robot. I empty my suitcase, filling the laundry basket. From a corner of my luggage, I pull out a small plastic bag that I had stuck there and then forgotten. Stones: a pure white one, a couple striated with the gray-blue of a cloudy sky, and another, … Continue reading Stones
I really didn’t know the water could be that blue, take-my-breath-away-beautiful blue. On board the small boat, the handsome Greek captain stood at one end of the sitting/dining room and finished his safety briefing. Then his voice took on a nervous quality; he had something to tell his 46 passengers that he seemed afraid to … Continue reading Water So Blue––Greece, Sept. 2014
Leopard. TK glanced at the shivering group in his open-sided Land Rover, then took the wheel. “African massage,” he shouted back at his swaying passengers as the jeep rocked and rolled over the rutted dirt road this early morning. His head hung over the windowless door, eyes focused on the ground. He stopped the jeep, stepped down, … Continue reading Give and Take in Africa––a Tale of Two Kills
It happened just last month, in the ladies’ room at SFO: I had no more than sat down on my paper-shielded seat when I heard a waterfall in the adjacent stall. I looked under the partition to see a gusher of urine flowing freely and loudly onto the tile floor. No feet or legs visible. … Continue reading Toilets
Gauchito Gil: It happened in Patagonia the week before, on our way to an estancia to ride horses. As the bus bumped along the unpaved highway, our tour guide Maria filled us in on the economic history of Argentina. She mentioned a name that I didn’t hear, and Ezekial, our local guide for the Bariloche … Continue reading In the Austral Summer of 2015 – Part 2
Travel Tales amongst my Ramblings 