Traveling

It has been one month since Galen died. I can see farther now than during the first couple of weeks, when just one day into the future was overwhelming. I can actually see myself taking the teardrop camper on a trip across the country. I realised this while I was moving the camper to a friend’s place to store it out of the weather for the winter. I hooked it up with a little help from a friend who was walking by (that’s the great thing about Rosthern – if you need a hand doing something in the yard, just hang around for 15 minutes and someone will walk by who can help!) It felt good, driving down the highway, glancing in the rear-view mirror and seeing the trailer. I think I can do this.

While Galen was ill and after he died I just couldn’t imagine traveling without him. I figured I would sell the teardrop – traveling alone just seemed impossible. We had so many trips planned together. Galen was keeping a list of places that he wanted to go yet. Here is part of the list that was on the notekeeper on his phone:

• Lost gardens of Heligan Cornwall, England
• Platte River, Kearny, Nebraska for the Spring migration of sandhill cranes late March to early April
• Sasan (GIR) game preserve (lion sanctuary) in India
• Wataskiwin, AB pioneer museum
• Statue stairs in Kyoto, Japan
• Mountain of the Gods in Turkey
• Zhangjaijie National Forest Park, China
• Pamukkale, Turkey Mineral hot springs with interesting pool formations.‎
• Alvord Desert, Oregon Next to the Steene Mountains
• Hot Springs fossil bed in South Dakota

I hope to go to at least some of these places, but I better get started. I could even go to some of them with the teardrop.

Now that I can see a couple months into my future, I have a trip planned for the end of November (thank you, Dan, for inviting me along on your holiday). It has given me something to look forward to, something to plan. I love traveling and planning trips.

In April we are planning a celebration of Galen’s life in Victoria as well as Oregon so that our distant friends and family members can share their memories of him. That gives me another point in the future that I can see and look forward to.

All this gives me a focus. And, I hope, confidence that I will travel again on my own. It will be different. Galen was such a wonderful traveling companion. Always eager to go along with my wild ideas of where to go and how to get there. Always observant of the details around him. The birds, the plants, the buildings. . .  Willing to eat the street food and take the local buses. It can never be the same. I started looking through some photos from our trip around the world to find a couple of him. I ended up with quite a few. I’m posting them all here – such great memories for me.

Buying tickets for a joy raid

Of course he had to check out the engine.

Drinking coffee.

Eating grapefruit while waiting for a bus.

Waiting for the ferry across the Strait of Malacca - yes, the one with all the pirates.

Meeting a blacksmith in Malaysia.