Starlit campfires, travelling the open road, country music, devouring books, visiting historical sites, mosquito bites, UNO, bike rides, white water rafting, Eurocamp and cousins…
My Dad is, and always has been, the intrepid explorer, and he taught us kids young to appreciate travelling. Our very small years were spent exploring our own continent – France, Switzerland, the UK and Ireland. I remember vividly my Dad’s bedtime stories while my cousins and I listened from beneath the duvets, the day a butterfly landed on my multicoloured t-shirt, the playroom in our Swiss chalet, the coaxing that had to be done to encourage us to record everything in our diaries (I still have all my holiday diaries – they do make for some quite amusing reading!), skipping competitions and early morning exercise with my Dad and Uncle in the lounge with 5 squealing little girls! I remember the day, in Switzerland, we ate so many apricots we paid for it afterwards, the “law” that adults were not allowed to pick up children in that country, or we would be arrested (how did we fall for that one?!), the day I got locked in the holiday home and left behind while everyone went on their merry way, thinking I was in the “other” car!
Over the next few years, we returned to the USA, ticking off more and more states each time. Always on the road; always moving from place to place. There is something so very freeing about that kind of holiday. I got to appreciate the beautiful city of Boston, went to my first baseball match in Portland, followed the Oregon trail, walked slave plantations in the deep south, drove through the Rockies, rafted the white waters of the Colorado river, buggy-rode through Amish Lancaster County and went to a Rodeo in Jackson Hole. Each trip holding its own precious memories.
