I know that I haven’t quite finished talking about Japan yet, but I really wanted to write about the people who unknowingly sowed the seed in me to travel.

My Grammy and Grampy.

I know I could simply write them an email, but I wanted to share with others what they shared with me.

 

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are when they would come back from some foreign country or another.  We would all gather at their house and receive our trinkets and strange currency from far off lands.  It didn’t matter what they brought back, big or small.  For me, it was the thrill of knowing that it was from a mysterious place thousands of miles away that I had never been and now I had a little piece of it.  After the bestowing of gifts, we would sit on floor and furniture for a slide-show of their latest adventure.  The cousins, my brothers, aunts and uncles, parents.  I loved these times. 

Not having any grandchildren or even children of my own, I try to continue the souvenir tradition with my nieces and nephews.  I bring home foreign coins and keepsakes for them to enjoy and maybe I will be the one to jumpstart their travel bugs one day.

Grampy was also an amateur photographer.  His images were those we would watch with interest during the slide show.  He and Grammy would tell the stories behind them and we would laugh or ‘ooh’ and ‘aww’ or just sit in rapt fascination.  I most distinctly remember the photos in their upstairs hallway of lions from safari in Kenya.  I always thought how amazing it would be to travel and capture images like that to share with other people.  Inadvertently, Grampy also inspired my interest in photography.

I have always been amazed by their spry-ness. Well in to their 70s and even their 80s, they were still taking regular trips.  They annually vacationed in Bermuda (where they honeymooned in 1950) for their anniversary; 20 years straight until a few years ago.  They also thoroughly peppered the years with other excursions.  Giraffe Manor in Nairobi in both ’78 and ’85 (ages 49 & 55/56 & 62).  The Cayman Islands in ’89 (ages 60 & 66).  An Alaska cruise in ’93 (64 & 70).  A barge trip through France in ’95 (66 & 72).  A cruise around the boot that is Italy in ’04 (75 & 81).  A trip down the Amazon and a cruise to Antarctica in ’05 (76 & 82).  These are just the trips that stand out in my Swiss-cheese-memory.  The year they went to Italy, coincidentally, is also the same year I went to Italy (separately) and also hit up England and Wales.  My first trip outside the US.  At the age of 24.

Their trip in 2005 where they visited South America and got to set foot on Antarctica completed Grampy’s goal of traveling to every continent.  It took him 82 years but he did it.  Although, I suspect he wasn’t putting much effort in to it for the first couple of decades.

They collected magnets from all the countries they visited.  Their entire freezer is covered in them.  When I started traveling, I adopted this tradition for myself.  I have barely a fraction of their impressive assemblage of magnets, but you have to start somewhere.  Perhaps when I am their age I, too, will have a camouflaged freezer.

Grammy turned 84 in April and Grampy will be 90 in July.  I was fortunate enough to be able to be there for her birthday.  But I won’t get the chance to celebrate 90 years with him, as I am a world away.

I wanted to tell both of you that I love you so very much.  Your lives have had more impact on mine than you could ever know.  I know that the words I have written here have not adequately conveyed the emotions of the memories I am describing.  I don’t know if I would have felt so compelled to travel and photograph had you not been doing that throughout my formative years.  Every time I put my foot in a new country, I think of you.  Thank you.