Memories and Faith in Traveling

What does a travel girl write about when she hasn’t been anywhere? When “Good to Go” has been “No Go” what’s there to tell? Memories. We rely on little trips down memory lane that bring us joy and satisfaction of a travel experience.  I’m not a big shopper, but I do buy small things that will conjure a memory for us in our daily lives. Yesterday at lunch, I had our chunk of salt and the tiny grater on a plate. We were offered a similar hunk of salt in Peru this last February. We all thought it was so fun to grate onto our food, so I bought some to bring home for our table. Yesterday’s salt reminded us of that wonderful trip, that meal, that experience.

The bacon crumbles were in a tiny colorful platter, hand-painted in Ecuador. We held the little wooden dish and remembered the market when the artisans used a riot of color on everything. Something like Pennsylvania Dutch tole art on steroids. Our little bowl brought back that trip to the handicraft market.

When traveling with Good to Go, I buy postcards that I never send during a trip.  In some of my Hunker Bunker cleaning/organizing, I happened onto stacks of these picture postcards of places I’ve been. I have mailed (sometimes randomly) about 100. A fun little memory for me and hopefully a smile from the recipient. Who doesn’t love to get a postcard in the mail?

Open up the closet of any real traveler and you are bound to find items of clothing purchased around the world. Son Caleb used to love to wear things to school that prompted the question from his buds, “Cool shirt, wher’djagitit?” And he got a kick out of answering with the exotic locale his mom had purchased it such as, “France,” or “Australia”. We’ve all got a T-shirt or 20 bought with the destination screened on the front to announce to the world we’ve been there. I’ve got a huge T-shirt with simply the word “faith” across the front. But trust me; there is a memory of how I acquired that shirt.  This past January the Good to Go Gang took a Caribbean cruise out of New Orleans. About the second day, I passed a rather big guy wearing this T-Shirt with “faith” across the chest. He smiled and spoke to me and my Perky Patti self, returned the smile with “like your shirt!” He surprised me with, “I’ll give it to ya next time I see ya!” I laughed appropriately and stepped into the elevator.

The next time I saw the big guy he had on the same shirt, this time in black. I grinned and said “like your shirt!” He remembered me, laughed and said, “Oh, yeah!”  The next time I saw him, I was sitting on the Lido deck having lunch with several of our gang. Here came my friend wearing a white “faith” shirt. He spotted me first and smiled and “This will probably embarrass me more than it will you!” and he pulled that cotton-pickin’ T-shirt over his head and tossed it to me. The shirt off his back. Well, I was more than a little surprised and I knew the back story, but you should have seen the faces of my travel friends. Jaws dropped and eye brows shot up and I’m sure their minds were a tornado of ideas on what the heck just happened.

I brought it home, washed it up and kinda laugh every time I yank it on. Faith in traveling… that’s Good to Go.