About Me

My photo
Delray Beach, FL, Westport, MA, United States
Undergraduate degree, Colby College; MA in English, Columbia Teacher's College; former high school English teacher in three states; former owner of interior design co. with MA from R.I. School of Design. Barking Cat Books published my first book in 2009 titled, MINOR LEAGUE MOM: A MOTHER'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE RED SOX FARM TEAMS. My humorous manuscript titled ELDERLY PARENTS WITH ALL THEIR MARBLES: A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR THE KIDS was published in June, 2014. In 2015 A SURVIVAL GUIDE won a gold medal in the self-help category at the Florida Authors & Publishers Association conference. In 2018 Barking Cat Books published my SURVIVING YOUR DREAM VACATION: 75 RULES TO KEEP YOUR COMPANION TALKING TO YOU ON THE ROAD. See website By CLICKING HERE.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Introduction to A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PEOPLE WHO TRAVEL TOGETHER

I'm about 90% finished with a new manuscript titled, A Survival Guide for People Who Travel Together: Tales from the Road. Most of the anecdotes are Charley's and mine, but at least a dozen other travelers have contributed. Thanks to all who so willingly recounted their stories with great laughter or nostalgic affection! I might add, there are no children on these journeys. That is another whole book, probably not mine.


Introduction


     Charley and I have done a lot of traveling together over more than fifty years. It started while we were engaged. I was still in college and he was an Air Force officer assigned to Dover, Delaware.  For two years we drove back and forth between Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and Dover Air Force Base in his white VW “Beetle,” shouting fraternity and sorority songs to stay awake:  “Give a rousing cheer/For the boys are here/Lift your glasses high…”
Saigon, Viet Nam 1967
     After we’d been married a year, Charley was assigned to Viet Nam. We met in Honolulu halfway through his year-long tour in ‘67. He arrived at the agreed-upon hotel at 3 a.m., but the desk clerk swore his Rolodex didn’t have any record of my being there. “Try under my name,” Charley said to the man.
     "No, sir, nothing under 'Charles Carey.'"
Honolulu, 1967 
     “Try again under ‘Pamela Carey.’ That’s spelled C-A-R-E-Y.”
     ”Wait a minute! Here she is! Her card was stuck to the card in front of it.”
     “Honey, it’s me,” Charley said quietly, knocking on my door. Since I was expecting him the next morning, I was sound asleep with my hair in curlers and a mud-gunk mask all over my face. Today cell phones would prevent such tragedies. “Open the door!”
     Half asleep, I stumbled to the deadbolt and slid it back. Thirty seconds later, bits of my mud mask hung all across Charley’s stubble.
     We began to travel with another Air Force couple, but he was a pilot and none of us stayed in one place very long. Eventually we traveled with friends from each town where we settled.  We learned quickly there are close friends you can travel with and close friends you can’t. After we had kids, we gave up travelling with other couples. It was too exhausting to make decisions for more than four, and some of the other females qualified in the “bitch” category, were ALWAYS thirty minutes late, or simply couldn’t make up their minds. Charley and I needed our “quiet time,” without any explanations for the hours we might be missing-in-action.
Buzios, Brazil  1982
     Travel is one of the things we enjoy doing together most….unless there’s an argument. And on foreign trips, especially, one of us will always get pissed off, probably from a lack of sleep. Let’s face it – we all dream of an idyllic trip before we leave, but no trip can be perfection. There are often mis-communications, unforeseen emergencies, as well as plain old physical discomfort. No accommodations are quite like home. A sense of humor and the ability to “roll with the punches” are indispensable, even if the punches come in the form of a stolen car or poison ivy surrounding your torso. As we age, "rolling with the punches" has become more of a "get on your feet before the countdown."
Baldissero, Italy  2005 
     When our sons were playing amateur and professional baseball (college ball and the Red Sox organization), we traveled across twenty states to watch them play. During Charley’s professional life, we traveled around the world on business. In retirement, we devote several weeks a year to international travel.  In addition, we drive from Massachusetts to Florida and back as “snowbirds” each year. On one of those trips, we didn’t speak from Massachusetts to South Carolina.  It wasn’t smart to have an argument before leaving on a 1200-mile ride together in a small metal cylinder!
On the equator    2008
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador  2008
Machu Picchu, Peru   2008

   When we travel we are on a figurative journey without a map. We know memories of the unexpected, the funny, the touching, and the exasperating will remain with us long after we get home.  We will always have that! It’s mind-blowing to immerse ourselves in another culture, even if it's within our own country. It teaches tolerance and respect. It’s about “crossing borders into foreign regions of the soul,” as Sue Monk Kidd said in Travelling with Pomegranates.
Sampling the lagers in Castlebar, Ireland  2017
Our date with the raptors, Ireland  2017
     I've developed some unwritten "rules" along the way to help us survive our trips. Sometimes we 
follow them; sometimes we don't. May those who journey together do so in reverence, excitement, and 
never-ending repetition of the mantra, "Zip it!"
                                                        Athens, Greece  2014
Dubrovnik, Croatia   2009
Puglia, Italy   2010

Monet's Giverny, France   2011
Zulu headpiece   So. Africa      2011
Relaxing in Key West 
Oia, Island of Santorini, Greece   2014
Island of Majorca, Spain   2015

Utah Beach, Normandy, France    U.S. Navy Memorial
Disney World   2014
Bonita Springs, Florida
                                      Harbour Island, Bahamas    2015                                 
Cape of Good Hope, So. Africa   2011
Photo below Las Vegas, 2007 

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris   2016
Lacco Ameno, Island of Ischia, Italy    

 Amsterdam, Netherlands    2016