Posted on May 3, 2018 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Mt.Rainier. Washington State

 

You may have noticed. I have traveled quite a bit in my lifetime, especially since I retired three years ago. I have traveled by car, train, bus, airplane, boat, motorcycle, and rickshaw. And of course on foot. If you have time and patience, traveling can be a great education.

Yes, with the internet, you can go to the four corners of the earth in the safety of your own home. But even in these times of instant information and on line reviews, there is nothing quite like traveling in real time. Agreed, there will be glitches. Weather can affect your plans and there are many other unavoidable delays. If you are catching a connecting flight and you know that you’re going to miss it, it can be very upsetting. Ditto for lost luggage. If you’re traveling with an elderly passenger or small children, you can sometimes be faced with issues that put your patience quota to the test.

But it is so worth it when you can reconnect with old friends and family members, or have a chance to see the wonders of other parts of the world.

Many people hate airports. I am not one of them. People watching is one of my favourite things to do while I’m waiting to board a flight. Sitting in Heathrow, O’Hare, and the airport in New Delhi, you can watch the world walk past you. Who are these people? What is their story? Where are they heading? Will their journey bring them joy or sorrow? What do they do for a living? If I’m not fatigued, I’ll often engage with someone sitting in the waiting area, or on a plane or train. Young or old, everyone has a story to tell. And of course, there are times when you want to be left alone with your thoughts.

Every person working in an airport wears some kind of uniform. They are all part of a vast and complicated organizational structure that keeps things operational.

I love watching planes take off and land, marveling at the mechanics involved in getting them off the ground with hundreds of passengers and tons of luggage. I am even more in awe wondering how they can stay airborne so long. My longest non- stop flight was fifteen hours from Delhi to Toronto.

With more and more of us traveling, ticket prices remain affordable. I remember flying out to Victoria in the early 70’s. In today’s dollars, factoring in inflation, flying is cheaper now then it was 45 years ago. Mind you, the days of free meals and free booze are gone unless you’re sharing space with the elite. I’m in the cattle class and only get a whiff of luxury when forced to pass through the first class section of the plane.

What are the longest ten minutes of a trip taken by plane?  That’s easy. The plane taxis to the arrival gate. The engines are turned off. Almost instantaneously, the cabin gets very warm. People are tired, stiff and often cranky as they wait for the door of the plane to open. The anticipation of getting off the plane and meeting loved ones is palpable. It reminds me of the moments prior to starting a marathon. You can almost cut the air with a knife. When the door finally opens (it feels like hours but it is usually only minutes), everyone starts to move, even if you’re near the rear of the plane. People in window seats feel the need to get up even though their turn could be several minutes. Bodies are contorted in strange angles as people try to stand even there’s not enough room. Invariably the person in the row behind you is chomping to get off the plane and elbows you as you try and get your carry on from the overhead bin.

And then, freedom.

I saw this passage in the Air Canada En Route magazine the other day while flying from Victoria to Toronto. It pretty well sums up my feelings about travel.

“Profound, if brief, encounters with strangers are among travel’s chief pleasures, an opportunity to look at the world from someone else’s perspective. At a time when some wish to build walls between “us and them,” our ability to forge connections is more necessary than ever.”

Amen.

Have a great weekend.

 

Posted on April 26, 2018 under Thursday Tidbits with 2 comments

 

Mt. Douglas, Victoria, B.C.

(Peter MacDonald photo)

 

“Go rest high on that mountain,

Son your work on earth is done.”

Go Rest High on That Mountain – Vince Gill

So much sadness. I hate to start off my post with bad news but sometimes there just seems to be so much death on our doorstep. It started with the horrific bus crash in Saskatchewan, leading to the deaths of so many young lives, followed by the senseless killing of innocent pedestrians in downtown Toronto.

And now, in the space of a few days, death has stolen of few of our own. I went to school with Heather MacVicar. She was one of the Brookland Street MacVicars. I don’t think I have seen her since we passed through the doors of the old AHS in 1970. She was looking forward to attending a 50^th class reunion in 2020. Heather died a few days ago. Life can be so cruel and unforgiving.

I didn’t know Barbie (MacMillan) Whalen growing up. She was Wally and Mary’s daughter. She spent a lot of her life in California and lived the last two years of her life in Antigonish surrounded by her compassionate and caring family. I met her at the RK. She was my mom’s roommate for a few days before being moved. Her health deteriorated but she never lost her sense of humour. I would drop in from time to time to sing a few tunes and tease her. She lobbed a few good one liners right back at me.

Life is so quick, fleeting and fragile. It can be cruel and unforgiving.

I’m back on Canadian soil. I had a wonderful time in Arizona and was treated royally by my hosts, Lisa and Dudley. We walked, we ate, we hiked and shared lots of laughs. I enjoyed hanging out with their five pets while they attended a funeral in Vancouver. The weather was spectacular. I am told that when summer comes, people rarely spend much time outdoors at the temperature can soar to 120.

As much as I travel, there is something very comforting when I arrive back in Canada. Somehow, Canadian Customs doesn’t seem nearly as intimidating as other countries. After the fiasco in India last year, I renewed my Canadian passport for 10 years so I won’t have to worry about this expiring any time soon. I hope to live long enough to renew it for another 10!

A Nexus card is worth every penny if you do any amount of traveling.

I had barely touched down in Victoria when my brother Tom pushed me out the door for a walk. He tells me that this was by far the nicest day of the spring. I must have taken some sunshine with me from Arizona. Victoria is such a beautiful city especially at this time of the year. The flowers are in bloom and the lawns are lush and green. Despite all the walking I did in Phoenix, I was a bit ragged by the end of our jaunt. The two of us plus Tom’s dog, Oslo, logged 12 kilometres in 25 degree heat and quite a bit of the walk was hilly.

Quick. Fleeting. Fragile. If you’re going to do stuff, do it now. Don’t procrastinate. What are you waiting for?

Have a great weekend.

 

Posted on April 19, 2018 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

Sedona, Arizona

 

“But it’s alright now; I learned my lesson well,

You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself”

Garden Party. Ricky Nelson

It’s so true. Not everything we do in the run of a day is met with universal praise.

My piece on baptism which ran on Tuesday was one the most read stories that I’ve posted in quite some time. Maybe it was the picture of the baptismal font with the stained glass in the background that caught your eye. Whatever it was, most of you liked it. Writing about religion of any sort is tempting fate. It remains an important part in the lives of millions of people throughout the world.

Writing about growing up Catholic is a tricky proposition in our part of the world. There have been good times and times we’d rather forget. A few of you took exception to me taking a light hearted approach to the sacrament of baptism. As I have said many, many times over the past six years, my posts are intended to entertain and give people an opportunity to smile in a world that seems so fragile and agitated. Maybe religion is too sacred a topic to treat lightly. Weigh in!

I was so pleased to hear that a few women have decided to join the local chapter of 100 Women Who Care after reading my post on Monday. Don’t know what this is? Check this out from Monday’s post. https://www.week45.com/monday-morning-musings-241/

Arizona is as advertised… hot and dry. I’m not going to rub it in, especially in light of the destructive weather that I’ve been witnessing in Central and Eastern Canada. For the next four days, I’m animal sitting for my hosts who are away on family matters. I am looking after three small dogs and two cats. One of the dogs, Daisy, a kooikerhondje, loves to walk. We do a couple of walks daily totaling around 15K.

I have heard a lot about the small town of Sedona, Arizona and yesterday, after feeding and walking the pets, I jumped in the van and drove a few hours north to Flagstaff and then down to Sedona. My guess is that many of you have been there. Driving through the desert, it is hard to imagine how this land became inhabited, being so arid and desolate. I got a kick out of some of the names along the way: Bloody Basin and Horsethief.

The road from Flagstaff to Sedona is quite stunning with high mountains on either side of the road amid groves of pine trees. How did they ever construct this road? It descends over 20 miles or so with some of the tightest switchbacks I’ve ever seen. Sedona is visually stunning with red sandstone mountains. Apparently this area was once an inland sea with high iron content. The iron oxidized giving the mountains their reddish hue. It’s a bit of a tourist trap.

Because my time was limited, I took a one hour trolley tour which went outside the town to some of the famous vistas. The highlight was the tour guide. If he was a Californian, he would be a surfer dude but this guy lives to hike. When he’s not chatting up tourists, he’s somewhere in the mountains. He claims to have seen just about every kind of wildlife including bears, bobcats, mountain lions and rattle snakes. His worst encounter? One day he was walking along a popular trail when he met a young girl walking with her Chihuahua. As he bent to pet the dog, it snapped at his feet causing him to recoil and take a few step backwards… right into a cactus plant. It took him three days to remove the thorny splinters from his butt.

In a week’s time, I’ll be flying up to Victoria to spend some time with Pete and brother Tom.

Some of you have asked about my India book. I am spending a fair bit of time in Arizona doing some editing. It’s coming along well and should be ready to go in the late fall.

Have a great weekend