Tag: travel

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Traveling to Sudbury

We are about a week away from traveling north to Sudbury Ontario. We’ve never been there and that’s the charm of going. It’s going to be our 40th wedding anniversary and my wife wanted to visit a new place. So we’re off to Sudbury. It’s on about the same latitude as Escanaba Michigan which is a place we visited about twenty-five years ago.  I love to travel but I’m always mildly apprehensive at the same time too. What will the road be like? Are there gas stations in Northern Ontario? You know the usual things that an anxious person imagines.

We both love visiting Canada and this will be my second visit to the province this spring. Last month I drove up to Niagara-on-the-Lake and took in Prince Caspian at the Shaw Festival.  This trip is a much more ambitious undertaking. It’s about a three-hundred-eighty-mile trip almost due north. That’s six hundred sixteen kilometers which sounds more impressive. I’m trying to learn more about Sudbury and the route of the trip north which is on Route 400.   Podcasts are one of my favorite sources of information and I’ve been looking for ones that talk about travel in Northern Ontario.

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We don’t get many people like you

In the past week during my stay in Tempe AZ I’ve been traveling around the area on Uber. Uber is a great way to get from point to point. It’s safe, efficient and all the drivers have been very friendly and courteous. For the past two mornings my drivers have said, “We don’t get a lot of people like you.” I said, “You mean guys that are 60+ years old.” Each time they smiled and said, “Yes.” My driver this morning said, most people your age don’t have smart phones. I smiled and confessed to being a geek. I’ve enjoyed my banter with these younger entrepreneurs who are really working as independent contractors out here in the Phoenix area. Uber is great way to get around and is the fraction of the cost of a rental car with the added convenience of not having to invest in a GPS too. When you’re traveling especially around the Phoenix, AZ area I encourage you to try Uber.

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On the road again…

We spent the night in Breezewood, PA. after driving from Franklinville, NY enroute to Williamsburg, VA. We’re celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this weekend.  Twenty-five years and two children and the passage from a thirty year old to a fifty-five year old has occurred in what seems like half the time. Last night when we stopped for dinner I took advantage of my senior status and got a nice meal at a reduced rate.

Good news yesterday as our daughter, Dara got a 4.0 at Fredonia State College for the spring semester of 2008. We’re very proud of her. She’s on track for summa cum laude next spring.  We recalled our trip twenty-five years ago in my 1980 Chevy pickup with “just married” taped and tied to the tailgate. We had no idea of the rich journey we were undertaking. We had no idea of the children who have blessed our marriage nor the many lovely memories. Back then I was working as a custodian and Diane was a third grade teacher.  We used to bring Diane’s Commodore 64 home and hook it up to the TV. Diane and others encouraged me to return to college and in 1987 and 1988 I received my A.S. and B.S. from Regents College and I was on track to a career change.

Twenty-five years later we make the same journey with much different surroundings. Laptop and digital camera in hand. Cell phones at the ready. Text messaging our children and keeping in touch with our parents as we make our way to Colonial Williamsburg, a place of special memories.  God has blessed us. This is our second or third vacation without the children and its somewhat lonely, but still we are connected in an increasingly connected world.

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Soteria

A couple of days ago I left home with Georgia on my mind and this morning I’m going to return to a place that really only exists in my heart. Last night I arrived after nearly an eleven-hundred mile journey to Albany, GA. Thirty-five years ago I arrived here in dress blues with my seabag and another hospital corpsman. We were fresh out of United States Navy Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, IL. Continue reading “Soteria”