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| Lori’s Dad, Performer |
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| Chuck’s Dad, Handsome Devil |
Today our full-time travel adventure begins! It’s only slightly coincidental, more serendipitous, that today is also Father’s Day. What would our dads think of us going to Europe for 6 months? What better day to begin our full-time travel lifestyle?
For most people, the travel bug is nurtured by their parents, and often by their Dads. Family vacations in Chuck’s house began months in advance with Dad poring over AAA maps and Holiday Inn or Howard Johnson directories (remember the aqua blue and orange?). Lori’s dad was similar, announcing over dinner where their next trip would be, and, when the day arrived, picking her up out of bed and putting her–still asleep–in the back seat of the car or the motor home. Oh, and there was the motor home to dote on between travels!
Chuck’s dad, only a few weeks before he passed away, mused that if he had won the lottery, he would buy a wheelchair accessible van and hire a man who could both drive him around the country and help him with his dialysis. Where would you go? I asked him. He thought about it only for a moment or two. San Antonio, where I was first stationed in the Air Force. He was a handsome devil back then, his whole life ahead of him.
For the longest, thinking of that conversation depressed me: I was caught up with the impracticality of it all, that Dad was being so unrealistic. But more recently I’ve come to appreciate that, despite his rapidly failing health and the physical and emotional pain he was enduring, Dad could still dream, and his dreams were about travel. It’s no wonder Lori and I are consumed with wanderlust.
Thanks, to both our dads, for the travel dreams, watch over us and keep us safe! And happy Father’s Day to all the other dads out there.
