How Awful Traffic Can Be

Travelling is a life style and it is something that you like, something you endure or something you avoid at all costs. My feelings towards travelling fall somewhere in between the last two.

You can't experience those wondrous things that are offered in exotic locals from the comfort of your living room couch. Seeing the Tower of London in a photo or on a TV show just isn't the same as when you are standing in front of it looking up. You miss the impact a solid structure gives you, you miss the sense of history that emanates from the stones at your feet.

To see four heads that have been carved from the stone at the top of a mountain on a postcard is no big thing. When you have to drive miles through heavily forested country and then realize that thousands of men and machines laboured for years to create this monument. You stand perhaps a mile away and stare in awe at what had been accomplished in this remote location. Sometimes you wonder WHY?, but it is always impressive.

We are more than half way through our trip and have seen some wonderful things. We are in the section of our trip where people are replacing heads of dead presidents carved in stone. The people will have gotten a little greyer in skin and hair, somewhat thicker and gravity will have had its way with them over the years since last seen. I am also a little worse for the passage of time as well, but we look past the physical and see the wonderful people that have always been there for us. It is wonderful to reestablish those lines of thought and love that have connected us throughout the years.

Memories may be the only things that some of the people I meet will have in common. Others will just pick up the forty year old friendship like it had been just a day or two since we last talked. Some of the people I will regret not having kept in touch with and promises will be made to be better in the future. I may have a few more facebook friends to deal with next week. It will be fun.

For now, I am looking forward to getting through the next week of visiting and then that long...long...long drive home.

One of the wonderful things about travel for me is that I will get home with all sorts of ideas on how to live my life in a way that will please me more. I will have decorating ideas and be filled with an urge to feather my nest with some of those new ideas I just mentioned. I have ideas about crafty projects to tackle, redecorating that I have put off for far too long, and surprise, surprise, I think I am going to go home and purge some things that really need to be purged. It may take a while, but this time I think I will do it...probably.

Oh, and never again will I complain about the traffic jams in Calgary or how bad the drivers are. We just have no idea about how awful traffic can be.