The Genesis of the Dream

Sunday, 26 July 2015
Deer Crossing RV Park — San Patricio, New Mexico

We’re at B-Day -3 … the countdown towards the RTW “Booking Day” continues.

Time is not passing as quickly as I hoped it would — even with the sightseeing we’ve been doing these past days.  Writing is a fun pastime for me … so, this is as good a time as any to look back a bit and keep busy at the same time.

The dream started ages ago when my parents took me to see a movie titled Around the World in 80 Days.  I was just a little girl then … intrigued by the very idea of circumnavigating the world.  Did I even understand the concept fully?  Probably not, but Phileas Fogg and Passepartout quickly became synonymous with images of distant lands.  That movie lit a fire deep down in me … one that I didn’t immediately recognize for what it was … a deep-seated desire to travel.

In later years, I read the Jules Verne book on which the movie was based.  Verbal descriptions of exotic lands were added to the images already pinballing around in my brain.  Colorful words joined with colorful visuals to fan the embers of the smoldering ‘travel fire’ within me.  But I was still just a child, and patience was the word of the day.

The years passed … during holidays and school breaks, I traveled with my family … mostly within Turkey; occasionally to the US to visit the maternal side of my family.  More years passed ... I graduated from high school.  My parents asked me what I wanted as a graduation present.  There was no hesitation when I said … “a trip!”  I didn’t care where … I just wanted to go somewhere.  And so they sent me to spend a couple of weeks with friends in Germany, exhorting me to explore while I was there.  They probably meant for me to do some sightseeing around Frankfurt … not take a bus tour to Paris!!!  But that’s a story for another time.

In 1981, Mui and I married.  Within 45 days we were on a plane to the US … making a permanent move that signaled the beginning of our joint travels.  Mui shared my dream to travel around the world.  But before we could embark on such a journey as we envisioned, we had to work hard, save money, and retire.  That did not stop us, however, from scratching the ‘travel itch’ when and where we could.

We started small with day trips to sightsee near where we lived. We expanded to long weekends … and then to trips that lasted a week or two … or as long as our limited vacation allotments allowed.  We visited towns and cities in the US and explored national parks from east to west and north to south; we went up to Canada and down to Mexico; we crossed ‘The Pond’ to visit family in Turkey and made a few stops in Europe along the way; we transited the Panama Canal and circled around Cape Horn; we spent time with elephants and lions in Africa … with brown bears in Alaska … with polar bears in Churchill … with blue-footed boobies in the Galapagos … with penguins and fur seals in Antarctica; we sipped champagne at the tippy-top of our planet.  And more.  And still I dreamed of the day we would circumnavigate the world.

  Just a few of our “Two to Travel” adventures.

[To see more images from our travels, click here for my online gallery.
You can scroll through the photos or set them as a slideshow using the button at the top right of the page.]

In the interim between trips, I lived and re-lived the travels of others vicariously by participating in travel forums and reading blogs … I perused itineraries galore for land- and sea-based trips.  And throughout this time I continued to dream of the day we would circumnavigate the world.

At the end of 2012, Mui and I left the workforce behind.  And what did we do but immediately hop in our motorhome and start to travel fulltime in our ‘condo on wheels’.  Admittedly, the Phaeton’s wheels didn’t roll far after the first year — but only because we complicated our road-tripping plans by introducing overseas travels into the mix.  First it was two weeks here, two weeks there.  Then we started stringing together trips to distant lands that took us away for a month … two months … four months.  All in practice for … you guessed it — the dream of traveling around the world.

A dream that is now on the threshold of being realized … in 530 days!  Not that I’m counting, mind you!

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