Travel Tuesday - What have I learned about travel from staying close to home

Over the last two years I have learned, or rediscovered a few things. Let me share:

There are things to do and places to see in our own backyard, that it is easy to overlook in the hustle to travel and see the world.  Being near home I have discovered and rediscovered the wonders near me. 

To really see a place, you need to spend time seeing it.  I made a point of walking the same walk, five or more times a week, for a year.  I got to know it rather well, and was still surprised after months of walking the same steps, that there were things I had not seen, some had been there, some were changes.  When we travel and spend a few days in a place, more often just a day or two, all we really see is a very limited glimpse of the place.  This renews my desire to go stay in one place for a month or two.  Rent an apartment, live among the locals, walk the same sidewalks for a month or more.  22 more moths and I can start doing that.  

I have enjoyed armchair travel.  Reading, blogs and YouTube.  I have traveled the canals of England, had glimpses into life around the world.  There are a couple of great bloggers English bloggers in Japan, the more I see the more I want to visit there.  One of them is constantly being asked to host guided tours for English speaking visitors.  Recently he posted a short video, I suspect after a little too much to drink, about why a tour with Chris would be the worst tour in the history of guided tours. He is funny, creative, and has helped me explore and understand a place I have never been.  A couple of the cruise ships that work the Pacific Coast in the summer season, spend the winters in Asia, I want to take a repositioning cruise from Seattle to Tokyo.  

I have enjoyed a couple of flying channels on YouTube. Going flying with Citation Max reminds me so of flying with my father as a kid.  Now granted Max's daddy bought a much nicer airplane, but flying it is still work - and Max is very professional. I still need to take a private jet flight.  Have I told you I passed on the opportunity once.  I was at the local airport near my parents in Florida and a Learjet pulled up, refueled and loaded a couple of boxes in the back.  I got to talking with pilot, the plane belonged to a boat manufacturer.  They were flying a box of critical parts to Arizona and coming back the same night. He offered me a seat, and I chickened out and didn't say yes.  Assuming that was a box of boat parts and not something else that would have been flying in and out of Florida at the time, it would have been a fun ride.  Might have been a fun ride anyway, as long as it didn't end with gunfire or blue flashing lights. (Florida was a major drug running center at the time.) 

If I hadn't been home, would I have found time, taken time for all of these, probably not.   

You Tube Monday : The Sweet Rowse Honey - The Three Bears (Episode 2 - Awesome Energy Porridge)

What could be sweeter than three bears? This video has been in my draft folder for months, maybe longer.  Come cook with me someday? 

Sunday Five- Blogging and Reading Blogs

An old friend got me started on blogging by asking me to fill in for him for a couple of weeks one summer while he went on holiday (he is English.) Through blogging I have met some wonderful friends.  Some only virtual, others in Person.  I have mourned a few losses.  Celebrated a few accomplishments. Hence this weeks Sunday Five:

1: Have you met any bloggers in person? 

2: Do you almost always leave a comment? 

3: Are there blogs you read that you would never leave a comment on? 

4: Has anyone ever tracked you down from your blog? 

5: What blogger do you hope to meet in person someday?

My Answers!

1: Have you met any bloggers in person? About 10 of them.

2: Do you almost always leave a comment? There is a core group that I try to leave a comment, even if it just a couple of words to let you know I was there, and a few I rarely comment on. 

3: Are there blogs you read that you would never leave a comment on? A few.  There are a couple I stopped commenting on because the response made it clear my comments were unwelcome. 

4: Has anyone ever tracked you down from your blog? Someone posted a photo in a comment of me taking a photo that appeared on my blog.  No further contact, that was memorable. 

5: What blogger do you hope to meet in person someday There are several, Ken and Walt in France, Sharon in Phoenix, Angus and Sophie in France,  Deedles who doesn't blog but posts great comments, there are others. 

Please share your answers in the comments

The Saturday Morning Post - My View

I have a couple of cameras (well more than a couple.) I have a great bag full of lenses, this was taken with a 10.5mm Nikkor fisheye lens. An amazing wide view of the world. 

Life is not always easy, or fun. I am fortunate to be able to choose how I respond to the trials of daily life.  Usually with getting stressed, then realizing that it is all a part of the journey.  It may not be the party I hoped for, but while we are here I might as well dance.  

I grump about the weather, and the traffic, and the cost, but I am very fortunate to live in a wonderful area.  As a major world capital, there is money, power, influence, and with that comes shopping, food and drink, museums, and arts.  It isn't perfect, it can be cold in the winter, and steamy in the summer, there are times when you simply have to give up on traffic and go home.  From the first time I visited here, I dreamed of living here.  This is really the first place in my life that I have lived in because it was someplace I wanted to be.  I am lucky, most people live where they live because of fate or chance or necessity.  It is an interesting place to view the world stage from. 

Politics are weird right now.  Frightening at times.  Politics have been like this before, and we have survived.  The late 50's into the 60's was a very difficult time, and yet big things were done. There is still a lot of progress left to be made.  But I can see it happening.  In the long run. Brave people standing up for what is fair and equitable.  

There are innovators in the private sphere working on amazing things.  Access to space flight, higher speed mass transit, cleaner energy, more efficient food production, medicine.  Government funding took us to the moon, but a bicycle shop demonstrated controlled flight.  Electric lighting, and telecommunications came out of private workshops.  In my view we are in a period of amazing innovation.  100 years ago only dreamers flew over oceans.  What will our generations equivalent be to that?  And there will be one.  

So I have an optimistic view.  If I take a pessimistic view,  I am pretty certain that I will be dead before life or civilization as we know it end.  

Fabulous Friday - Designer Anything

I am enjoying my second set of Prada eyeglass frames, I keep getting compliments on how good they look.  How much Prada actually worked on the design, I don't know.  I do know they didn't cost much more to make, than the no-brand one's from my favorite discounter. But they have that brand. 

Now I am stingy.  I seldom pay full price, and true to form the Prada's were half off on the purchase of a second pair of glasses.  Making them not much more than the no-brand frames from the discounter.  

When I lived in Orlando, there was a Calvin Klein factory outlet store just off International Drive, back in the days when factory outlets were actually owned and operated by the manufacturer.  It allowed me to indulge in some good stuff, without suffering anxiety over spending that much to look fabulous.  

I have no idea how much the Dior sunglasses are, if you want to try them on, you have to give them your ID and credit card to hold, while you try on the glasses (cuts down on runners). Fabulous is seldom free for the taking.  There was a news report in the Washington Post recently about a rash of smash and grab robberies of designer eyewear.  

Thursday Ramble - Reflections

 I have mentioned before that one of the early blogs I contributed to was the "Mirror Project" that posted photos from contributors showing reflections of the world that in someway reflected the photographer.  It was a fun project, it kept me looking for shiny objects.  It ended when literally someone dropped it, dropped the server all of the postings were saved on.  The last time I checked parts of it had been restored from bits and pieces, but the down time kind of ended that one for me.  Still I find myself stopping to take a photo of a reflection. 

I saw the good doctor recently, I was pleasantly surprised that I had only gained 3 pounds in the past year, I was sure I was up 10 or 20 pounds.  We talked, she is nice and fun and understanding of what I want, of what I feel is important.  I commented that I have largely my dream job, she said her nephew asked her recently about becoming a doctor, she said "I had to think about that, but yes, I am right where I dreamed I would be."  A small, local general practice.  

Many of us work to much, worry to much, don't take as good of care of ourselves as we should.  I thought I gained more weight, because I have neglected to make time for walking, for eating better, for stepping away to refresh.  We all need that.  We think these challenges go away when we retire, but as dear departed cousin Bill put it, "the biggest problem with retirement, is you never get a day off."  We get a day off because we allow ourselves to take one. A day off is a change of pace, a change of environment.  For those of us who have been working from home, the scene does not change unless we move.  I always dreamed I would someday live walking distance from the office, but I  really thought it would be more than 10 feet.  I can see my office from my bed, and my bed from my office, and it makes it harder to seperate the two. 

If we don't take care of ourselves, we won't be here to care for others, or save the world (at least our little corner of it.) 

When I look in the mirror what do I see? Someone who needs to step away for a couple of days, someone who needs to care for himself. 

What reflection do you see? 

The Way We Were Wednesday - Longing for the Good Old Days

 It has been about 23 months since we returned from Ireland, to a vastly changed world, with no idea how long the changes would last.  My most traveled year, I boarded a little over 30 airline flights, 4 last year.  A couple of times I have gone to Europe twice in a 12 month period, it has been a couple of years since the last trip, and I am longing for the good old days.  

I am maxed out on accrued vacation and paid personal days at the office, and struggling to find reasons to take a day here and there to minimize the loss of paid time off that I will never get.  In the past this was never a real issue, only when I was distracted or careless did I run afoul of the rules.  But without travel, both business and personal, I find it hard to take the time I have earned.  I often add a few days to work travel, staying over at my own expense to see people or places. I have had one work trip in 28 months.  And nothing seems to be coming up.  

I recently had a thought, oh get on with life, I should just book tickets and go.  The response was, is it time? Is it safe?  Be careful. 

We are going to New York in April, train up and back, and a hotel. NYC long ago instituted needing proof of full vaccination for indoor anything,  and masks.  It makes it a bit safer.  I look forward to it.  

I long to hop the pond, I long to see familiar places and faces, and to explore places and experience adventures unknown.  Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are all on the bucket list.  I read the online news in Iceland, an island nation that has done well at isolation in the pandemic, yet 1,400 positive tests and one death of a young person in the week before my latest read.  Maybe this is a longing I need to experience just a little longer.