I figure I’ve been in about 80 airports around the world. That’s a lot of time spent in airports. I started out at 7 months and just kept going. As a typical TCK, I learned to fly before I walked. By the time I was 11 months old I had been in a car, on a train, on a plane, on a boat and up a funicular. All those “at what age” questions in my baby book were full in no time.
I know some people feel at home in airports, or love being in airports. I hate them. For the most part, they are just boring. I have spent hours zoned out, jet lagged, and sleep deprived on hard benches waiting for the weather to clear or the congestion to ease up or to make up for a lost connection.
Some of my life’s most terrifying experiences happened at airports. When I was 5, my family was in a plane crash in Denver, Colorado. When I was 14, I almost missed my flight from Miami to Bogota. When I was 18, I ended up being wait-listed on a midnight flight from Geneva to Nairobi, not knowing if I would be stranded.
It seems that whenever I was in these kinds of situations, I never had much money and I never had needed contact information. I just got on airplanes and expected everything to go okay and didn’t worry about it. Had I missed that flight to Bogota, all I had was my parent’s address in Bogota. No phone number, no other contact info. I suppose I could have called my brother but I’m not even sure I had his contact info. After all I was 14 years old.
But I was lucky. There were times when things didn’t go that well, but somehow I always managed to get where I was going. Over the years, I learned there were times when you really could depend on the kindness of strangers.
Travel has become more difficult, more crowded, more expensive, more stressful. But I keep doing it. My next trip is to the Arctic via Scotland. Wish me luck!
I retired, had a great retirement party, and immediately came down with a cold. Fortunately not Covid. I hadn’t been sick in a couple of years. At the beginning of Covid I bought tons of cold remedies so I would be prepared but I never got sick. When I did get sick, they had all expired.
Now ten days later, I feel human again. Battling the system. I have yet another Social Security meeting next week. Medicare eludes me. Now the country has run out of money, by the time I get my Medicare sorted it will probably be defunded.
On the brighter side… we got another six inches of snow and I haven’t seen the sun in a while. Next winter I’m going to have to go to South America for the duration. My brother took off for New Zealand the other day. Lucky him.
Retirement. I have so many things on my to do list, I am actually feeling overwhelmed. Where to start? What to do first? Maybe it is an excuse to do nothing. I’ve been sick. I need to just take some time off and do nothing, right? Domestic chores continue to mount up. When you retire, you still have to do laundry and dishes and clean the bathroom. Really? Doesn’t seem right.
I was gifted this book called The Catch Me If You Can by Jessica Nabongo. She is the first recorded Black Woman to visit all 195 countries in the world. She did most of them in about two years. In the book she takes about 100 countries and writes a page or two about them. It gives you a snapshot, a quick anecdote, a favorite moment. She is an entrepreneur. She invented herself. Blog, travel, travel agency, promotion, London School of Economics, jobs in Japan and Benin, Ted Talk, writer. She also sells home goods, jewelry, travel accessories through a website called The Catch (although they seem to be not taking orders at the moment). One of those people who does it all and makes it look easy and seamless. The book is beautiful with lots of great photos. I don’t think I’m going to Catch her, I have like 150 countries to go.
My cousin’s husband just started a blog about his travels around the USA, either by motorcycle or camper, and all the people he meets along the way. He calls it America is a beautiful thing .
Here are a couple of snapshots a la Catch Me If You Can…
Argentina five years ago:
As we flew into Ushuaia airport I could tell the pilot was having to do some maneuvering swooping down in-between the mountains and dealing with the heavy winds. A province of Argentina, Tierra del Fuego is an island that sits at the southernmost tip of South America. Ushuaia, its capital, is on the Beagle Channel about half-way between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 620 miles from Antarctica. The meeting of the two oceans along with the mountainous terrain creates a strange weather pattern. It was usually very windy and could rain, be sunny, be stormy, windy raining, all within the same hour. It never rained for long and usually not very heavily. We could be out walking in the rain and never feel wet.
Once we hit the ground, I started to cry. It had taken me more than thirty years to get there but I was finally there. It was an amazing feeling. And the beauty of it did not disappoint, it was even more beautiful than I had imagined. The light and color was like nothing I had seen before. The area was dominated by snow covered mountains all around. Before arriving I had been worried that the excursions I had reserved would be cancelled because the weather forecast called for rain every day. I soon realized, rain meant nothing in Ushuaia. Life went on no matter what the weather was. One of our tour guides said the only people carrying umbrellas in Ushuaia were tourists. Because of the winds, umbrellas were useless.
Egypt one year ago: Valley of the Kings
Then we wound up the hill into the valley where the tombs were hidden. One reason they picked this area is the mountain is naturally shaped like a pyramid. Only twelve of the 63 discovered tombs are open to the public at any given time and they are alternated as they are worked on and restored. We saw four of them. The whole area was still being actively excavated. Some tombs were in better shape than others. King Tutankhamun’s tomb was the only one that still had a mummy in it and it will be moved soon. It is hard to describe the experience, it was beyond beautiful so amazing to think how old they are.
I read all the Amelia Peabody books by Egyptologist Barbara Mertz aka Elizabeth Peters that span the time from 1884-1923. She wrote 20 books based in Egypt mostly about archeologists digging around and solving mysteries. As I read them, I kept trying to imagine what the Valley of the Kings actually looked like back then, or even now. All I could imagine was a vast desert with nothing much else. Well, now I know.
Mount FitzRoy (Photo by Gaspar Massidda on Pexels.com)
Climate and the Land
Yvon Chouinard, rock climber and founder of the brand Patagonia, announced he has given away his company, worth about $3 billion. He gave it to a non-profit called Holdfast Collective that will ensure all profits (about $100 million per year) are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land. Patagonia will continue to exist but Chouinard will no longer own it. Patagonia has given $50 million to Holdfast Collective and plans to give $100 million more this year.
Chouinard’s best friend was Doug Tompkins. They used to go rock climbing and adventuring together and in 1968, they drove from Southern California to Patagonia together to climb Mt FitzRoy on the Chile/Argentina border. They made a film about it called Mountain of Storms.
A later film (2010) recreates their journey and highlights some of the conservation work Tompkins was doing — 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless.
Tompkins died in 2015. He was the founder of the North Face and then of Esprit. He sold them both and in 1991, he established the Foundation for Deep Ecology. He had always loved spending time in Chile and he eventually moved there and bought a rundown farm. He spent his time climbing and kayaking and considering how he might preserve the area. Over time he bought up land in Patagonia that was still wild and undeveloped. When he died he left over a million acres of land to the Chilean government to create a national park. In 2017, the president of Chile accepted the one million acres and added another 10 million to create the largest protected area in South America.
After watching these documentaries, I became enthralled with Chile. It is definitely on my list and I hope to be able to spend some time there exploring its many diverse landscapes.
By the way, Mount FitzRoy was named after the Captain Robert FitzRoy of the Beagle, Charles Darwin’s ship.
The Queen’s Queue
Not only is Queen Elizabeth II lying in state for close to a week, but there is a “queue tracker” where you can keep tabs on the long line winding its way across London. Last time I checked the wait was 9 hours but this changes constantly. People seem happy to do it. I might even do it if I was in London. After all, it’s a one-time thing (click on image it see it live).
I have been reading lately about all the airline travel problems people are having. Long delays, cancellations, missed events, long lines. It looks pretty bad, but then I read an article today that compared what was happening now to pre-pandemic numbers and they aren’t far off. There have always been travel uncertainties. I was looking through some old writing of mine and found this from 1997. I was living in Moscow, Russia at the time. My two year old child and I were on home leave in Minnesota and we were flying back to Moscow via Amsterdam. Noah is my son, Nicholas my husband who was in Moscow.
“So we got on the plane and at first they said they had to offload some luggage and it would be about 15 minutes. Then they said they couldn’t start one of the engines automatically so they would have to try it manually. Then it didn’t work manually so they would have to fix that. They never knew for sure what the problem was or how long it would take. Noah fell asleep about an hour into it and slept until we got into the air. After they they fixed the engine, the computer program had to be re-entered with the new times so that took a bit longer and then finally we were off, three hours late.
Noah finally fell asleep about an hour before we landed in Amsterdam. I guess I have blocked it out because I don’t remember most of it or how I entertained him but we survived somehow and when we got off, a woman across the aisle said that my child was such a good traveler!! I didn’t know how to respond to that.
Our connecting flight was just leaving when we arrived in Amsterdam so I went to the transit desk and they told me they would have to put me on the next flight out which was the Aeroflot at 12:45 pm. I said I didn’t want to fly Aeroflot and she said she understood completely and I should go talk to the people at the ticket counter. So I went there and they told me that all the flights to Moscow that day eventually connected to Aeroflot so if I wanted to go that day, I didn’t have a choice. They told me I could refuse to go and I assume they would have put me up for the night but then I didn’t know what would happen to my luggage so I decided to just go. the 12:45 flight was fully booked in Tourist Class so they put us in Business Class and as the KLM guy was giving me my ticket he said – Well, at least it is Business Class, whatever that means…. I said I would find out. They also gave me a free three minute phone call to Moscow so I let Nicholas know when to meet us.
There was a couple with two small children also waiting for the flight to Moscow and I found out they had been on my flight out of Minneapolis. It turns out that they were just moving to Moscow and it was their first time. I thought, what an introduction for her… She won’t forget this trip for a while. I gave her my phone number and she promised to call me. The world is small.
Well, Business Class on Aeroflot is a real treat. The only difference between it and Tourist Class is that there is leg room and you get to use the First Class toilet. Tourist Class has six seats across with no leg room, Business Class has six seats across with leg room, and First Class has four seats across with leg room. All the seats are the same size. Noah slept the whole way and I slept through most of it so can’t comment on the service except the beverage choices were Sprite, Coke or mineral water. The landing reminded me of the UTA pilots in Africa. We would dive, then go up, then drop, then dive again. Noah thought it was great fun.
After we landed and arrived at the gate the announcement was made that in fairness to everybody the Tourist Class passengers would exit first and the Business Class and First Class people would remain in their seats until everybody else had exited. We sat there and watched as all the people in Tourist Class filed past us. Unbelievable.
Luckily my bags showed up right away and Nicholas was there waiting.”
I have survived many such sagas. Some worse than others. But it hasn’t stopped me so far…
I just finished reading The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin. It is historical fiction about Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The author explains that what makes it fiction is her lengthy descriptions of Anne’s emotions and inner turmoil. The facts are there but she is guessing at how Anne felt about the events of her life. She did have an eventful life.
The daughter of the American Ambassador to Mexico, Anne met Charles Lindbergh in Mexico City in December of 1927. In May of that same year he had flown solo, non-stop from New York to Paris. It made him one of the most famous people of the time. He was 25 years old. Two years later, when Anne was 23, she and Charles were married.
I learned that Anne became a pilot, a navigator, the first woman to earn a Glider Pilot license, and a successful writer. Not to mention raising six children and running a household on her own. She lived in the shadow of her famous husband but she was really the star.
The book takes us through the pain of losing her first born to kidnappers and murderers. The trauma of being doggedly pursued by journalists and photographers. The confusion about her husband’s feelings toward the Nazis. The sorrow of seeing her husband spend less and less time at home. And the discovery of his infidelity.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote Gift from the Sea, reflections on life, love, marriage, and how things change over time. It was the top non-fiction bestseller of 1955, and is still enjoyed by many today having sold over 3 million copies and been translated into 45 languages. She also wrote about their flight to the Orient. They were the first to fly from Africa to South America and explored polar air routes from North America to Asia and Europe.
Two years ago five friends and I rented a villa on Lake Como in Italy. We had all been to a reunion at our boarding school in Switzerland and were ready for some down time. Sitting on our porch we were soothed by the waves lapping onto the beach and an awe inspiring view. We were all transformed in one way or another after that trip. The beauty of the place, the calm atmosphere and the joy of sharing time with old friends inspired us all.
We would have loved to do it again but finances did not allow another trip to Europe so soon. Instead we decided to share a house on the west coast and coordinate it with a school party at a friend’s house. I found a three bedroom house in the Malibu Colony right on the beach. This time the waves were crashing onto the beach below us. We spent five days mostly mesmerized by the Pacific Ocean. We talked, we ate, we drank, we relaxed. It was sunny and peaceful.
Frederick Rindge, founder of Pacific Life insurance and vice-president of Union Oil Company, purchased the 13,300 acre Spanish land grant Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit in 1892. In 1929, his widow, May Rindge, was forced to start selling the property in lots. One of the first to go was the Malibu Colony. It is located just off the Pacific Coast Highway about an hour north of the Los Angeles airport. Today it is a gated community with multimillion dollar homes right on the beach. We were lucky enough to enjoy five days there. –
I recently read ‘Too Close to the Sun’ about Denys Finch Hatton and it reminded me of the amazing women through the ages who chose to spend their lives in foreign lands. Here area few of my favorites.
Karen Blixen and her brother
Karen Blixen was Danish. She married Baron Bror von Blixen and moved to Kenya in 1914. Unfortunately he gave her syphilis and she returned to Denmark after only one year for arsenic treatment. She lived through it, however, and returned to live in Kenya for another 16 years. She ran a coffee farm for a while but always struggled with it and eventually was forced to sell the land. Her lover, Denys Finch Hatton, was a big game hunter who died in a plane crash just as she was dealing with the loss of her farm. She returned to Denmark and lived there for the rest of her life. She wrote under the name Isak Dineson as well as a few others and a couple of her more famous books are:
Out of Africa (1937); Anecdotes of Destiny (1958) – includes Babette’s Feast which was made into a movie; Letters from Africa 1914-1931 (1981 – posthumous)
Beryl Markham
Beryl Markam was English. Her family moved to Kenya when she was 4 years old in 1906. She became friends with Karen Blixen even though there was an 18 year gap in age. Beryl also had an affair with Denys Finch Hatton and was due to fly with him the day he crashed. She had some kind of premonition and did not go. However she did go on to fly extensively in the African bush and was the first women to fly across the Atlantic from East to West. She briefly lived in California married to an avocado farmer but eventually retuned to Kenya and became a well known horse trainer. There is a new book out about her life called “Circling the Sun”.
Her memoir (a very good read) is: West with the Night (1942, re-released in 1983)
Alexandra David Neel
Alexandra David-Neel was French. She became an explorer at a young age running away from home at the age of 18 to ride her bicycle to Spain and back. In 1904 at the age of 36 she was traveling in Tunis and married a railway engineer. That didn’t last long since she immediately had itchy feet and set off for India. She told her husband she would be back in 18 months but did not return for 14 years. Her goal was Sikkim in the northern mountains. She spent years studying with the hermits and monks of the region and eventually, dressed as a man, snuck into the forbidden city of Lhasa.
Her account of her trip to Lhasa is a fascinating read: My Journey to Lhasa (1927)
Gertrude Stein by Picasso
Gertrude Stein was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in California, attended Radcliff and Johns Hopkins University, discovered her sexual awakening while in Baltimore and fell in love with another woman. She moved to Paris in 1904 where she collected art and held “Salons” promoting modern unknown artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne. During World War I she learned to drive and drove a supply truck for the American Fund for French Wounded. Her writing was revolutionary and influenced many modern writers including Hemmingway. She was a strong, opinionated woman and a copious writer with a great sense of humor. Her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas cooked and ran the household. Two of my favorite books by Stein are:
The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas (1933); Ida, A Novel (1941)
James Joyce and Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach was a contemporary of Gertrude Stein and also lived in Paris. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was a minister and she grew up in Europe. She owned the bookstore Shakespeare and Company and published James Joyce’s Ulysses when nobody else would touch it, even though she had no money herself. She lived in Paris most of her adult life.
Her memoir is: Shakespeare & Company (1959)
Catherine II by Johann Baptist von Lampi
And just for fun… Catherine the Great. She was born in Stettin, Prussia (now Szczecin, Poland), and traveled to Russia in 1744. In 1745, at age 16, she married Grand Duke Peter of Russia and became the Russian empress in 1762. She did not get on well with her husband and managed to “convince” him to abdicate so she could take the throne. Soon afterwards he was mysteriously killed. She continued to rule Russia until her death at age 67. I visited her palace outside St Petersburg a couple of times when I was living in Russia. One room I particularly liked was the Amber Room. The walls are covered in amber and other precious jewels.
A good book about her life is: Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie (2011)
I met Fran Yarbro when I was 17 and she was 15. We were both on the varsity volleyball team at The American School in Switzerland. We spent two hours together every afternoon at practice. She was a natural athlete and good at volleyball as well as all the other sports she played and an excellent skier. She was beautiful. But she was tough. Nobody messed with Fran.
From high school she went on to get a Masters degree from the International School of Business in Arizona. She lived most of her life in the mountains, mainly in Colorado. She was also a mountain climber. When she was 33, she was climbing Annapurna and met Sergei Arsentiev. Sergei was famous in Russia for being one of the best climbers ever. He had climbed all the major mountains in Russia as well as Everest. In 1992 they climbed Mt Elbrus in the Caucasus and Fran skied down. They were married that same year and soon moved to Colorado together.
Fran had a dream. She wanted to summit Everest without oxygen. On May 22, 1998, Fran became the 8th woman to summit the north face of Everest, she was the first American woman to summit the north face of Everest, and she was the first American woman without oxygen to summit the north face of Everest. Fran was 40 years old and she had realized her dream.
The first day I was here the high was 14F. The next day the high was 6F. Now we are approaching 30F so things are looking up a little. At least the sun is out today. It snowed yesterday.
I rented an apartment in the middle of downtown. I have yet to move into it, though, because my stuff isn’t arriving until the weekend. I am holed up in a hotel room on the 16th floor with a great view. I am right on the skyway system so I don’t have to go outside to get lunch. It is starting to wear on me.
Tonight I will get into my car and drive to my parent’s house for dinner. Siri will guide me.
Things I have noticed so far. Weather is still a big topic of conversation. When people stand in line at restaurants and stores, they stand way back from the counter and the person in front of them. They aren’t crowding around the counter in a hurry. They are patient. Everybody smiles and says hello.
I can buy everything I need at Walgreens. Good to know.
There is a tequila bar across the street from my apartment building. Note to self – must investigate. Next door is a sports bar with 8 recommended beer flights on its menu. Ahh the choices….
Out my back door is a farmer’s market that apparently still works in winter. More on that once I verify.
I ate mole tacos on corn tortillas for lunch today. Now that is pretty radical. Maybe I am moving in the right direction after all.
