I read it somewhere

I like to read, and traveling gives me a chance to stick my nose in a book or my Kindle on airplanes and other down times. I love to find books about the place that I’m visiting. On our recent tour to Australia, I re-read The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough (a best selling novel from 1977, but more remembered for Richard Chamberlain in the movie.) Heading to Ireland this fall, I will have to dust off Angela's Ashes, 1996 memoir by the Irish author Frank McCourt.

Sometimes it’s fun just to peruse “picture books” to get an idea of the scenery we can anticipate. When I’m a little less familiar with the city in which I will have some free time, I invest in a guide book, a Fodor’s or Lonely Planet type, that I can attach some sticky notes of neat stuff to remember while traveling.

This week I took a little trip involving books and past tours as I set up a display in the showcase at the Grove Public Library. I was able to bring many treasures from past trips, my giant map pinned where my family has traveled and of course some photos and books. I’d love for you to stop in and see it!

Memories flowed as I held each momento, where I was when it became part of my collection, the artist, the giver of the gift… all those reminiscences filled my senses and I was glad to have the keepsake. Traveling is accumulating- the mementos, of course, but the much more cherished cache of recollections of the experience.

I have also collected many what I like to call “good travel quotes” and one of my favorites is a quote that has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Isn’t that great? Twenty years from now? Shoot, ten years from now!

But when we go to pack our bags and hit the adventure trail, lets remember these words from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays,

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”

Things we discover may not be just as they were pictured in the National Geographic Magizine. The food might be different than it was described in the guide book. The “good directions” that we were given may give us “additional viewing opportunites” aka getting lost. There is beauty in all of these things, if we have it in our spirit to start with.

Let’s be Good to Go! Let’s collect some memories! I encourage you to get inspired with a trip to your local library and start the adventure, even if only as an armchair traveler in a good book.