Our Motto: Travel Until You Can't!

 And That's Exactly What We Did!

        Besides our politics and our religious faith, what Doug and I had most in common was our love for travel. Frankly, I think what Doug loved even more than travel, was planning for travel.  I'm quite serious about that truth.  While I took care of almost all of our business concerns--bank accounts, payments, filing taxes, etc.--Doug completely took over planning our travel. He did it with the same enthusiasm that was apparent when he was preparing for classes. I was thrilled, of course. I knew that each trip we took would be planned not only down to where we would stay, but also what activities was might do day by day. 

 

         I just needed to drop a suggestion. "I'd like to go to the Cinque Terra in Italy. I just read an article about it in the Times." And he'd be off. He'd buy not one, but two, and often three travel books to begin with and then get out his handy legal pad and start taking notes.  I was happy leaving it all to him, and he would ask me questions from time to time, but we were so compatible with our travel ideas, that I knew I would love to do what he had planned.

        The yellow legal pad notes did not stop there. Every evening, no matter where we were, he would prop up in bed and begin recording the day. In detail. After our trips he loved to get out those legal pads and read over them. From time to time, he'd ask, "Do you remember what you had for dinner on London on Wednesday, the 12th?" In response to my blank look, he's rattle off, "We both had fish and chips, but I had coffee and you had a glass of wine. We walked to the pub, which was only a couple of blocks from where we were staying in Golders Green." I'd just stare at him as he grinned widely in delight that he had recorded those meals. (Sadly, we lost all of his yellow pad journals on the flood of 2013. Although we lost everything in that flood, including our cars, I know that was his biggest regret.  I'm sorry about that loss, too, but I think I wouldn't be able to read his writing even if I still had them.)

Where Did We Go?

• To the UK several times.  

         London is one of our favorite cities, and we always felt at home there. Doug and his family had lived in Golders Green for a year, so the city was like home for him, and it became that way for me too. Our friend Helen Hawkins lived in London, and while she was an editor for the Times, we'd enjoy her generosity with theatre tickets and private clubs afterwards. We also took students there several summers, staying at Regent's College. Of course, there was always something new to explore each time we went, but we always made time for the British Museum and the British Library. Doug's very last international trip was to London in 2022. We knew then that travel had become to challenging and he had become too exhausted to enjoy the trip.

 

At Shakespeare's Globe, London

 

        But we were all over the place in the UK: The Lake District and Cornwall were our favorites in England, along with Holy Island, Lindisfarne. In Scotland, we enjoyed Edinburgh, but mostly traveled to Iona in the Hebrides. We had a great love of Wales and the Welsh, having stayed just outside of St. David's.

Doug & Kay at a Celidh on Iona in the Hebrides

• Ireland. At least twice to Dublin once and then to Galway. Doug also traveled to the Aran Islands while I was at a conference in Galway.

• France.  Paris was also one of our favorite cities. We have been there several times, most frequently staying in the Marais.  We liked traveling in France, though and spent time near Le Mont St. Michel, Rouen, The Taizé Community, Toulouse, Foix, Carcassone, the Brittany region, The Languedoc region for Cassoulet on Doug's birthday. Peyreperteuse to see Cathar Castle ruins, another birthday request from Doug, St. Malo.  A day trip from Foix to see the prehistoric cave paintings of Niaux was so beautiful  and overwhelming that I cast aside my claustrophobia, as stepped right in to the dark slippery, narrow passageway to the first open space where the drawings from 17,000 years ago.

  

  Lunch at the Rodin Museum in Paris
  

  
  
  

• Italy. Our first time there was Venice, The Cinque Terra, Florence, with a side trip to Pisa. We traveled and met up with several friends. The second trip was a small village on Lake Como.  Our third was the Amalfi Coast with family, with a day trip to Naples and the ruins of Pompeii. Hiking, art, food, the canals. I learned to ignore the sneering waiters when I ordered cappuccino in the afternoons.  We always meant to, but we never made it to Rome. 

  

  On the Isle of Capri
  

  
  

• Spain. Our one trip there was to Barcelona, where we stayed near Las Ramblas, and saw signs in four languages: Spanish, French, Catalan, and English. We loved all the Gaudy. and we especially loved a side trip to Montserrat, accessible by way of a funicular. 

• Canada.  Many times to British Columbia and memorably to New Brunswick and The Bay of Fundy. 
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• Istanbul , Turkey.  That was a Rick Steves trip, the only time we did a group trip. We were in Istanbul more than a week. The sites, the people, the food. Utterly remarkable, and I'll always remember the Muslim call to prayer. 

  

  Lunch in Istanbul
  

  
  

• The United States. We traveled all over. I think Doug had been to every state on the continental U.S., and I have been to all bu two: North Dakota and South Dakota. The very last trip Doug took was to see our New York and Connecticut family, shortly after our great grandson Rafe was born. That was in October 2023. Catherine gave us first class tickets--André, Eileen, Legend, Luca, Doug, and me--and that made the trip comfortable and doable, She also rented us a waterfront Airbnb in Westport, which was beautiful and comfortable with lots of room for us to gather with her, Brett, Joanie, Alex, and Rafe.

  

  Doug, Eileen, and Joanie: His Last Trip
  

  
  

    Our mode of travel was this. We stayed in B&Bs, Gîtes, Airbnbs, and small two-star hotels, We took buses and trains, the Underground and the Metro. We did a lot of walking. We stopped at small cafes for coffee breaks while we were exploring wherever we were. On our final trip to London, as we were leaving a play at the New Vic, I was worried about walking back to the Waterloo Station. Doug had been so tired from our walk from the station to the theatre that we had to sit and rest. As we left the theatre, I saw the queue of taxi cabs all lined up and beckoning to us. And that's how we got back to our place. It was probably only the second or third cab we had taken in the many times we'd been to London, and it was a real relief!

Meeting Shakespeare in Stratford (No idea who the others are)