W.P. # 92 These are the trips I made.
Fresh out of high school my boyfriend, Bob, and I starting working towards a trip to Europe. In those days you could have a job and still save money. Air travel was affordable and there was a massive trek of hippies traveling all over Europe and as far as India.
We didn’t go that far but we traveled in a van for 9 months all around Europe and Morocco, back to Germany to earn some money then onto Yugoslavia, Greece, including Crete, then sold the van and flew to Lebanon. (That’s a whole other story)
We worked in an army-base grocery store for the summer in Germany, still living in our van in a big parking lot under a bridge that had a fresh spring. Locals would come and wash their car there. The police, both local and army, would check us out every once in a while but they let us stay all summer.
One day a troupe of gypsies drove in with old Cadillacs and trucks pulling old trailers. It was the perfect spot to camp when they were passing through: a big, private place to park with fresh spring water and it was free. I met a gypsy woman at the spring getting water. She even had big hoop earings and a colourful skirt. We didn’t speak the same language but somehow we met and communicated. I offered her a cigarette and we sat and smoked.
Our coffers filled, we drove on to Yugoslavia, as it was called in those days, and met his parents. They had escaped when the communists took over in the early 1950’s by hiking over the mountains into Austria finally making their way to Toronto, Canada where I met Bob 20 years later.
They took us all down the Adriatic coast in tourist style. Real beds with sheets, restaurants…… that was a holiday within a holiday!
(This is me with Bob’s parents when we first met up in Yugoslavia; I can’t believe how young they look to me now!)
Bob loved to travel. He thought of himself as a ‘Ramblin’ Man’ and I was lucky enough to ramble along with him for four years. We drove to Florida when we were still teenagers. After our trip to Europe we moved ‘out west’ to Vancouver and would often take side trips around B.C. and it’s islands. We drove down to California, following another hippy trail.
I didn’t marry Bob. He did just a little too much rambling and I don’t mean travel.
The man I married was a hiker and later we got into caving. There were years we were driving down to Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama every chance he could get.
We had one holiday to the Caribbean; Barbados and St. Vincent. It was beautiful; he wasn’t. I got one day at a beach and he wanted to leave the whole time. I’m not kidding. But we did do some great things because we had to ‘do something’ every day. https://monicleblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/st-vincent/
I am so glad I traveled when I was young: I really need to thank Bob for that trip. I can’t afford it now and it was easier to travel in those days before terrorism. I don’t have much urge to travel now, probably because I have: I don’t have to regret I’ve ‘never been anywhere.’ Now I have the whole world come into the comfort of my living-room thanks to HD TV. The weather is always good and my own bed and bathroom are right there.
Oh, Yeah…… I spent a month in India. Again…… whole other story.
If you are young and reading this…… Make some memories now while you can.
https://theywalkthenight.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/writing-prompt-92/
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