Traveling

This is the time of year when many of us are traveling, June, July and sometimes August. Once again we hopefully go to new places or places we want or need to see to renew ourselves and to move forward in our lives.

I just returned from a 2 week sojourn on the East Coast of the United States. I had only been to this region once before, 10 years ago after the passing of my wife's mother whose family lives in North Carolina and that region of the country. This time we returned for a wedding of my wife's cousin's son. It is nice to be able to celebrate life and new beginnings. My wife and I have had enough deaths to deal with in our lives lately and needed something positive and new to celebrate. This wedding just happened to be the wealthiest wedding I have ever been to. It reminded me in some ways of a celebrity wedding that you might see on TV or hear about in a newspaper. The new wife's father is a CEO of a large company. His house looked like a hotel and was on his own private lake. The lake was died green for the wedding and to prevent mosquitoes. Even the semi-truck trailer size portable toilets were like going to the Ritz. It was a very awesome wedding with over 500 guests.

This began a journey that started in North Carolina and took us by rental car and plane to Williamsburg, and Jamestown in Virginia, then on to Washington DC to visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Native American Museum next door. It then took us by plane to Boston and by rental car to Salem, Massachusetts and to staying at the historic Hawthorne Hotel there and visiting the real "House of the Seven Gables" and Nathanial Hawthorne's home while growing up there and visiting old friends of my wife who live in Salem.

Later still it took us to Hyannis and to Provincetown out on Cape Cod and exploring that region for the first time in my life. The hotel on the beach where we stayed reminded one of the movie "Dirty Dancing" in that dance bands and entertainment were all a part of the family package one pays for while staying there. There were also jet skis available for rent and a double banana type of towed device that many people rode behind a tow boat that one swam out from the beach to get on for a ride. Then finally we drove our rental car to Boston and to an airport hotel with 24 hour free shuttle service to the airport. We were very grateful that we returned our rental car to the airport the night before because as soon as we returned our car it rained all night in a heavy tropical type of downpour all night long. So as we boarded our shuttle to our plane home to California we were able to stay dry even in the pouring rain. My 13 year old daughter had to run out and dance in the rain a little before we boarded our shuttle to the airport because we don't get very much rain here in California, especially the last couple of years.

So, we missed one nights sleep and got up at 3 am eastern time or midnight Pacific time and started our journey home. The normal 6 hour flight home was made much shorter by tailwinds and we landed 40 minutes ahead of schedule. As we landed in Los Angeles I was very aware of having not slept the night before. So trying to stay awake for the final flight to the northern California coast from Los Angeles International Airport was a bit much. But finally we boarded our smaller prop jet north. It was a good journey all and all. It was much more than I ever expected this time. I guess after all the grief of this year I didn't really expect to feel this much relief and happiness ever again. But as they say, "Time heals all wounds."