The Saturday Morning Post: Great Adventures in Travel: Travel When You Can

Once again I am inspired by reading comments. I have written about this sometime in the distant past.  

Back in my homebuilding days (this would have been 1992 or 1993) I was working with a talented young construction manager Scott.  He had everything, he was tall, blond, athletic, beautiful wife, a good job with a company that respected the construction managers.  

We were talking in the office one afternoon, and I was describing my second trip to Europe, Orlando to Atlanta, Atlanta to Amsterdam, three nights in Amsterdam, then onto Paris for five nights, then fly home via Amsterdam, and back in the office the next morning.  It was a whirlwind of new experiences. My first trip up the Eiffel Tower, being turned away at the door of Maxims, shopping the January sales in Paris department stores, the Louvre, and the streets of Paris. Memories that have lasted for decades. And this was just 8 months after the week in London.  

Scott commented that he and his wife wanted to go to Europe, but they were going to wait "until they could do it properly and be gone for a month."  I urged him to go when he could, even if it was only for a few days. Go now, and go often, don't wait. 

A couple of months later he collapsed playing softball and died on the field of an aortic aneurysm.  He bled out internally in a matter of minutes from a condition he never knew he had. 

All I could think, is he waited too long to go and do what he wanted to go and do. 

I have crossed the Atlantic for trips as short as six nights, because that was what I could squeeze into the schedule. Until I retired, it was difficult, at times impossible, for me to be away from work for more than two weeks. But I didn't want to wait, Scott waited too long, and he was only about 30 when it was too late. 

Take the adventure when you can. 

And YES I will keep bugging reminding someone to follow his dreams and book the trip.  

100 Tips to Slightly Improve Your Travel Experience: #32 Jet Lag

Researchers tell us to allow one day to recover, for every one hour of change in time zone. This allows our bodies rhythms to sync up with the local time.  So crossing the Atlantic it takes up to six days for our minds and bodies to feel quite right awakening with the rising sun and going to sleep in the falling darkness.  To achieve what for most of us is a normal circadian rhythm.  While our bodies and minds are adjusting we will find ourselves out of sync with sleeping and eating.  

A few ideas for coping. 

Starting adjusting before you leave home.  If you are traveling to an earlier time zone, start getting up an hour earlier, going to bed an hour earlier, and eating meals earlier than you normally would at home.  Start this a few days before leaving.  I have never made this work for more than a couple of hours, but that can dramatically shorten the adjustment time when arriving five or six time zones away.  

There are two schools of thought on what to do when you arrive in a new time zone. Many people advocate for forcing yourself into the local time immediately. Eat meals based on local time, stay awake or go to bed based on the local time. 

For short trips, say a week trip, across the Atlantic with a 5 or 6 hour time change, some say ignore the local time and live on your bodies time.  This can mean waking very early, or sleeping very late.   

What I have found works for me:

• Take it easy the first couple of days.   
• Don't pack the schedule with activities or work.  
• Allow yourself to be early or late as your body dictates.  
• Force yourself to go to sleep at a nearly normal local time. 
• Eat at least a little at "normal" local mealtimes. 
• Get out and see the sunshine, take a walk or a drive.  
• Hydrate, drink plenty of water. 
• Reduce stress, stress and jet lag can run down your body. 

For me it generally takes 2 or 3 days of being kind to myself to adjust to the local time.  I find it easier to adjust going east to west, than west to east, in other words easier returning to north America from Europe, than going from north America to Europe. 

The ultimate way to avoid jet lag, is to drive, or when crossing oceans to take a boat. The slower pace of travel spreads the change over several days, generally at not more than one hour per day. 

Jet lag, is often combined with sleep deprivation, I will talk about overnight flights next week. 

The Thursday Ramble: Thankful on Thanksgiving

Hanging above my desk, is the family tree of Captain Benjamin Godfrey, a distant relative who died in 1862. His life was complicated, in his younger years he did things that are embarrassing to talk about,  he was quoted in later life as saying he didn't think he could do enough good in the later years of his life to offset the things he did in his youth. His family tree traces back to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Massachusetts.  If the legend is true that the colonists joined with the local natives for a harvest feast of thanksgiving, my distant ancestors were there and a part of it.  

So here we are in November of 2024, at the United States holiday of Thanksgiving. 

What do I have to be thankful for? 

• A comfortable home, that is ours all ours. It is not large, but it meets our needs, and we have feathered the inside of this nest for our comfort.
• A retirement income, that supplemented with savings allows a comfortable lifestyle.  Barring disaster the money will outlive us. I need to remember to not be afraid to spend a little of what we have spent decades setting aside for our old age. THIS IS OUR OLD AGE. 
• We are not in fear of starvation, we eat well in a land of plenty. 
• Living in the burbs of a world capital, with access to many world class museums and collections. 
• A relatively safe place to live. 
• Despite our dismay at the recent election, we live in a country that people risk their lives to try to move to. 
• A mind that still functions, allowing me to read and learn, create, write, and share. 
• Tools and toys to fill my days with many things to do. 
• Good health, everything considered.  My body is not the same it was when I was in my early 30's, but I can still move, and I know I must keep moving or I will stop. 
• An education that places me in the top percentiles worldwide, not to bad for a kid who failed the first grade. 
• My wonderful blog friends.  I have met all of you virtually, several of you in person. I would love to meet more of you in person.  We are a community, we are chosen family. 
• I have had a year filled with new adventures.  A couple of them were bucket list items, crossing the Atlantic on a ship, spending a couple of weeks in the south of France.  Some were unexpected, the ride in an airplane that was new when my father was born. Tracking down and finding the last airplane my father owned (it is in a restoration shop in north central Florida.) Getting to know my neighbors and neighborhood.  Getting out to walk, becoming a regular at my local library. 
• Being thankful for lives well lived that ended this year. 

  Wishing You and Yours a Very Happy Thanksgiving. 

My World of Wonders, aka The Wednesday Ws. November 27, 2024

 

Where have I been this week? The National Gallery of Art, Mt Vernon, King Street, the gym, the indoor pool, a little grocery shopping, an Arts in Montebello board meeting, the library. 

What are my plans for Thanksgiving Day? We will stay home, where it is quiet, roast turkey breast, stuffing, and brussel sprouts.  

My Wish for your Thanksgiving Day? Relax and don't stress.  If you still have the special china, crystal or silver tucked away, get it out and use it. Either use it or pass it on to someone else.  We gave away our "special and never used" - everyday is special - we use the best everyday. So what if it wears or breaks, so will we someday. 

What progress have I made on adventure planning?  I booked the last of the hotels for next spring, 3 nights in Edinburgh and 3 nights in Glasgow.  Now to book a couple of connections between major cities. 

When will I next visit a shopping mall? Well after New Years, after the end of the year shopping frenzy. Half of what is on sale, is special junk just brought in for the season.  I always suspect items on "special sale" are marked with a price no one would ever pay, so they can mark them down to more than they should be, knowing that most people will think that it is a bargain.  Everyone should work retail for a few months at least once in their life. 

Who got the slap they deserve this week? The condo package thief, security traced and followed and caught someone taking recently delivered packages from in front of doorways into the stairwells to open them and remove the contents . . . a stolen laptop was recovered . . . we assume the police are involved. 

Who am I helping out this week? Watching for package deliveries for a dear neighbor down the hall who is visiting family out of state this week. 

Who was most in the spam folder this week? Doc Spo, I released him from comment jail. I wish the filter would allow me to set "always accept" comments from particular posters. It does not.  And it screens multiple comments posted at one time, as potential spam.  Part of being a good blogger, is regularly checking the spam filter for friendlies and weeding out the trash. 

Who gets the idiot of the week award?  Checking out at Aldi, with several people waiting I watched a women using the self check.  I was next in line, and she had just scanned the last item in her basket, and I am thinking I will be next and out of here in a flash. She leaves her kid there, with the order at the self check, and walks back to the far corner of the store for cheese. Comes back scans that, then fumbles for two minutes to make Apple Pay work on her phone, all the while others, including yours truly, are waiting, and waiting.  How inconsiderate. 

Travel Tuesday: Last Week's Explorations

Just a little color left in the trees along the National Mall

 

National Gallery of Art 

Taking the Oxen for a walk at Mt Vernon

The Perfect Point of Focus, a 1 in a 1000 shot 

Measuring the movement in 250 year old retaining walls at Mt Vernon. 

The Mansion at Mt Vernon is getting an updated foundation. 

The Window in the Blacksmith Shop at Mt Vernon 

The Upper Gardens at Mt Vernon ready for winter. 

The National Gallery of Art is not a part of the Smithsonian, it was independently founded and funded, to avoid the whims of Congress influencing the artistic content. 

This space is easy to miss at the National Gallery of Art, it is the outer office of the coat check at the main floor entrance. 

Building the stage for the inauguration. 

The Mall side of the National Gallery West Building. 

Moody Monday: Encouraging the Future

There is a prayer about having the strength to change the things you can, the patience to endure the things you can not, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two.  

So what am I doing? Mostly avoiding the news.  There are lots of things happening that I can not change, fussing about them only hurts me.  Stupidity and evil fill fail on their own. I find this encouraging. 

I was in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC one day last week.  There was a special exhibit of early impressionist works from the 1870's in Paris.  The exhibition talked about and showed Paris in distress. And thinking about it Paris has been tested a couple of times in the last 100 years. And yet the good and beauty recovered.  We may be moving into a period of distress, but in the long run, the beauty will prevail.  I somehow found the recovery of Paris, encouraging. 

Like many of you, I am still fragile. It is easy to worry about the future, especially as one who has studied the past. But the long picture of the past is encouraging.  Evil falls and fails of its own accord. I am focused on encouraging others to put one foot in front of the other, moving forward one step at a time, one day at a time, into a future of our making.  

 

The Sunday Five: Thankful

In the United States, Thursday of this week is our national Thanksgiving Holiday. A great time to pause and think about all that we are grateful for this year. 

1: Where did you most enjoy being this year? 

2: What was the highlight of your work this year? 

3: What family members brought joy to your life this year? 

4: What was the best thing you read this year? 

5: How many blogs did you enjoy reading this year? 

My Answers:

1: Where did you most enjoy being this year? The middle of the Atlantic. 

2: What was the highlight of your work this year? Retiring on January 5th. 

3: What family members brought joy to your life this year?  Sweet Bear, my sister, my nephew Michael and his new son Owen. 

4: What was the best thing you read this year? About Time, David Rooney

5: How many blogs did you enjoy reading this year?  There are 19 on my daily read list, I look forward to posts on all of them. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

 

Great Adventures in Travel: London May 1990

 

When I was a child, my grandmother told me if I saved my pennies someday I would be able to go to England. I did save my pennies, I am still saving them (at last count I have about 300 pounds of them.) I dreamed about going to where my grandmother was from. 

From late 1987 to mid 1991 I had an era of extraordinarily hard work, and high earnings.  In some ways I am still benefiting from that era, since then I have had nicer cars that a are paid for, and money that was set aside for retirement at that time is still growing away.  I was also miserable most of the time. I was in a relationship that didn't work for either of us, and I was working 60-70 hours a week in an environment where what you had accomplished was never good enough.  

I was walking by a travel agency next the neighborhood supermarket and saw a sign in the window, round trip air and six nights hotel in London for $666 a person. I had never been across the Atlantic. A get away was in order. I booked it, scrambled to get passports in time, and away we went.  

It was in many ways a dream trip.  I had wanted to take this trip for 20 plus years. I remember looking out the window as the plane was landing in London and thinking this is it, I have made it at last.  I have always loved the moment when the wheels touch down, and this one was very special.  

I was relatively young, at the peak of my running days (yes that is me in the photo.) We spent days exploring London, riding the Tube, seeing museums, going shopping, and not thinking about the office.  This was before email, before international cell phone service.  

There are wrinkles in the memory, things I wanted to do that didn't happen, my soon to be X being pickpocketed. But overall I have very fond memories of the adventure.  

Of course when I returned, my boss came to visit, and lectured me about having enjoyed my time off it was time to get back to work and make up for all of the time I had taken off (8 days in a row.) 

The following January we went to Amsterdam and Paris in a last ditch effort to see of travel could save a failing relationship. It couldn't. 

But I will always have the memories of that first week in London.

The camera, is a Canon AE 1 program, with a power winder, and probably a 24mm lens. I had 24mm and 28mm lenses, those were great glass.  That set up weighed about three pounds, and there were two more lenses in my backpack, a 50mm f1.4 and a 135mm f 3.5.  

 

100 Tips to Slightly Improve Your Travel Experience: #31 Phones

In a nutshell cell or mobile phones have totally changed staying in touch when traveling. Here in the United States virtually all phone plans include all domestic calls, no matter where I am in the country, I can call anyplace in the country for no extra cost. This is a massive change over the past 25 years.  When I bought my first cell phone about 30 years ago, I was paying $30 a month for 30-minutes in a coverage area that was only about 25% of the state I lived in.  Anyplace outside of that service area was about 15-cents a minute extra.  When we traveled and checked into hotels we often used the hotel phone to phone home. Today that is all easily done on the phone in my pocket, and without any extra cost, until I cross an international border (or get close enough for the phone to pick up a cell tower across the border.) 

My first "smartphone" was a blackberry bought specifically because of the availability of international service.  Today pretty much every phone travels across international borders, with 3G, 4G and increasingly 5G service being available around the world.  

Before you leave home, check with your service provider on costs.  It can be surprisingly expensive.  I have seen prices as high as $1 or $2 a minute, and data costs that can run hundreds of dollars per week.  

There are options.  My provider offers world service, for $10 per line, per day, for unlimited phone, text and data. I can buy that one day at a time.  When I start using it, I get a message telling me when it started and when it ends.  If I turn off data service before the end of the 24 hours, the charge stops, until I turn it back on. I don't talk on the phone much, in last springs 5 weeks trip, I paid for 12 days of phone service.  I turned it on when I wanted or needed it, and kept if off the rest of the time.  

What I can do, is turn on WiFi, and do email, do web searches, even watch YouTube when traveling, anyplace that reliable and safe WiFi is available.  That won't help when we are in the middle of France and the GPS unit is lost, or you need to double check on when a museum is open.  I turn service on when I want it or need it. 

If you are a heavy phone user, or have a compelling reason to stay available, you can also buy short term local phone service in most places.  Phones from the United States are sometimes locked, and changing out the SIM card or E-Sim can be difficult. Some people buy an unlocked phone specifically for this purpose.  I have never done this, I find it easy to tell people you won't be able to reach me by phone, send an email and I will check those at least every other day when I am at a hotel with WiFi. 

The Thursday Ramble: Reflections on a year well lived

The end of the year, and all of the end of the year holidays are fast approaching.  I have to admit, the year has flown by.  It seems like just yesterday, I was briefing Erica what she needed to know as the next director of the Commission. And already work is fading into distant memory.  I realized the other day, that I really don't care if I stay up to date on many of the issues I worked so hard on for 25 years.  That happened much faster than I thought it would.  I might even think about moving my license to retired status in a few years when I am eligible to do so. 

What has filled my year? 

Travel certainly, 73 nights away from home.  Walking, averaging about an hour a day, about half of that at the gym, about half of it wherever I felt like walking that day. Reading, I have finished reading over 80 books this year, I will end the year at nearly double my goal.  I have done some writing for a couple of journals,  and three consulting projects.  I am fiddling with my creativity with a little painting and lots of photographs - probably 6,000 this year.  I have had fun cooking, gotten bored, and then reignited my interest. I continue to enjoy blogging, daily, plus my daily selfie project. I need to decide if I am going to continue the selfie project. I lead a weird and eclectic life, and I like that.

Doc Spo's post the other day about how we answer "what do you do" caused me to stop and think.  Answering that I was a lawyer was always problematic. Some wanted legal advice that I was seldom able to provide, always worrying about the malpractice angle, others simply hate lawyers and think all are evil.  If I change the answer to what I do now, it should / could provoke a much different conversation.  

I can think of a couple of bloggers that I love reading, commenting on, or talking with, that I really have no idea what they do or did besides blog. But then I live in a town where many people give vague answers,  spies and other operatives don't tell you what they really do. 

Over the next few weeks I will draft my end of the year summary, and set goals for next year.  Then we will see where the next year takes me. 

  

 

My World of Wonders, aka the Wednesday Ws November 20 edition

Where have I been this week? The Pentagon City Mall, The Smithsonian Natural History Museum, The National Archives, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to listen to the National Symphony Orchestra, Huntley Meadows, along the River in Alexandria, the grocery store, the Library, and the gym a couple of times. 

What is the Photo above? An internal stairway at the Natural History Museum, I thought it looked best in black and white. 

What am I reading? I will finish Ina Garten's memoir before this posts, then I should finish Essays from the Sunshine State, and I have a novel laying on my desk to read.   

Who have I talked with?  My sweet bear . . . I am getting out but not talking to strangers. I had a surprise call from an old lawyer friend, looking for a referral. That call caused me to reach out to three former colleagues, and none of us knew anyone in Idaho. I have been trading emails with a couple of dear bloggers. I reached out to a Niece, and sent a chatty letter to my oldest brother who had a birthday this week. 

What are my plans for Thanksgiving?  I am down to roasting one or two turkeys a year, Thanksgiving is turkey day for me.  

What made me laugh this week? 

I read this too fast, and had another worn-out hole come to mind. If that makes you laugh, you have my kind of sick mind. 

What was laying on the sidewalk that made me wonder this week? 

Medicinal, how many sick people are there wandering our streets? I bet sales will increase over the next couple of years. 

What is my strategy for the next week? Shop for the special holiday meal, get out and about, and stay distracted. 

Who deserves a slap this week? The moron who is picking cabinet officers who are totally unqualified nutters. Out of 5, at least 500. 

How is my mood? Improving, slowly.  

 

Travel Tuesdays: The Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art

Most people either love or hate the Hirshhorn Museum here in Washington DC.  The building is a striking circle, open in the center, with circular galleries. I fell in love with the building the first time I saw it. Over the past year, the galleries have been gutted and redone. The result is that they are much more open than they had been the past few years, really showing the circular architecture.  The current shows are selections from the permanent collection, and street art, bright colorful, imaginative. 

The Banksy exhibit was very limited in time, and only two small pieces of his work were included in a small subterranean gallery.  The lower level and sculpture garden are undergoing a massive remodel, when finished you will be able to pass under the street and into the sculpture gallery on the lower level (why it was never done this way, I have no idea.) There will also be a much needed elevator to the street.