Pages

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Monday Meanderings: Three Travel Memories

Long after the purchased souvenirs are forgotten, the memories ~  those tidbits tucked away in the heart and mind ~ keep our travels alive.

Today’s post is part of a ‘blogosphere relay’ sponsored by Low Cost Holidays. Our invitation to join the team by writing about three favorite travel memories came from Marcia at Inside Journeys.

Sounded simple at first, but whoa! Think about your own travels . . .ever tried narrowing them to three favorites?  Here goes:

The First Trip
DSCF0122

My parents didn't travel so neither did this only child; well, we did made an annual 300-mile-road trip to overnight at my grandmother’s house once, maybe twice, a year.

kirkland 030So it wasn’t until October 1979 when I was 26 that I took my first ‘real’ trip. I flew from Seattle to Honolulu to rendezvous with a girlfriend, then working for a newspaper in Guam.

kirkland 031Ours wasn’t a high end resort stay – my half of the hotel room was $27 a night, we got around by using the (still excellent) public bus system and our big splurge was attending the luau at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  It was a blast!

(We didn’t know each other then, but Joel was about the same time visiting this island paradise with one of his buddies,staying in similar economy accommodations, I might add.)

I’ll never forget my first glimpse of Diamond Head, the sound of palm fronds rustling in the breeze, the sand, the sun, and the sea.  I decided that if Hawaii was that fantastic, there just might be other wonders out there in the world to discover. . .

Greece
0005540-R1-007-2
I’d been dreaming of those windmills of Greece since at age 9 I saw the Walt Disney movie set in Greece, “The Moon Spinners” starring Hayley Mills and Eli Wallach.  But back then, the thought of ever seeing Greece was as remote for me as heading to the moon. 

0005540-R2-010-3AFour years ago I finally saw those real-life windmills on Mykonos, the setting as magical as the movie had portrayed it.

0006100-R1-013-5What we discovered on that trip as we rode ferries through the Cycladic Islands: – Syros, Naxos, Paros and Mykonos -- was that we wanted more. More islands,
more time there,
more discoveries.

We continued our travels in Greece expanding our explorations and becoming more captivated with each visit.



The Cruise Without Clothes

We were known as “The Seattle people without clothes” on that Silversea cruise in 2004, a round-trip from Venice with stops in Croatia, Montenegro and Greece.

Huskies 019Unlike the way I’ve packed since that trip (with a change of clothes in the carry-on), we had only what we’d worn on the plane. (Photo: my ‘travel look’ leaving Venice and for several days thereafter.)

Being assured by British Air that the suitcase was on its way we didn’t worry about buying replacements.  

It was. It arrived in Venice . . .an hour after we sailed. It then went back to London, and visited Paris and Athens before arriving in Corfu on the fifth day of our eight-day cruise.  But believing it would be at the ‘next port’ we limited replacement clothes to a pair of sandals and a canvas skirt for me and a shirt for Joel.

Huskies 020Despite being 'clothes-less from Seattle' that cruise remains one of our favorite trips. It had fabulous ports of call and supportive and sympathetic fellow cruisers who offered to loan us clothes and then applauded us when we finally appeared on our wind-swept deck as we sailed from Corfu looking like we did in this photo.


With that I am passing the blogger relay baton to Daniel at The World of Deej. You can follow the relay on Twitter at #TeamBLUE or #BloggerRelay.



What are your travel memories? Care to share them? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook TravelnWrite page.

14 comments:

  1. Wonderful memories, Jackie! I can imagine how exciting that first Hawaii trip was -- very cool that Joel was there about the same time. I'm still dreaming of seeing those Greek windmill. Your third heading certainly had me intrigued.:) Enjoyed the story, too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was interesting to see which of the many memories floated to the top three and I couldn't bring myself to label them bronze, silver and gold - they all tied for first.

      Delete
  2. I love how your suitcase made the rounds. It always baffles me how things like that happen when there's so much tagging going on. Anyway, glad you reunited with your clothes in the end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is fun recalling that trip -- now, and talking about our daily trips to the desk to see where our bag might have ended up. Another couple from Colorado were waiting for two bags - the husband's showed up the same day as ours, hers never arrived.

      Delete
  3. Oh Jackie how I LOVED the "Moon Spinners" and the windmills were my first port of call on Mykonos for that very reason back in 1980. Sigh.... you NEVER forget tour first trip to Greece! Great post thank you. F

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Francesca, You know you can buy it from Amazon on DVD? I did before our trip and watched it again as well as ordering Mary Stuart's book on which it was based. Glad someone out there still remembers it as fondly as I do!

      Delete
  4. Hi,
    I can see why these are three favourite memories. I loved Mykonos but unfortunately did not get to any other islands. I agree the first trip by yourself is definitely a keeper memory, so funny that your husband to be was there as well. Having had our luggage lost this year while in Barcelona I can empathize with that predicament as well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a bit of a predicament isn't it? I like that word to describe it. Seems it isn't a tragedy of major proportion but still enough to take a trip into a new dimension. Hope you weren't 'clothes-less' for too long.

      Delete
  5. Those first trips are always memorable! Loved the photos that go with it. Your Greek trip looks like a little bit of magic. We had a week in Greece but in the month of March and I remember it being very chilly. But while in Greece we decided to go to Turkey and that was a wonderful, memorable 7 days. I'll pass on the trip without a change of clothes - but it all depends how you view the circumstance - and you seemed to have had the glass half full attitude. Lovely memories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually, I was trying to cut down the length of the post and I had written that it was incredibly cold in April when I first saw those windmills. I wore silk long johns under my pants for several days. . .not quite the image I had of Greece prior to the trip, but magic all the same.

      Delete
  6. Fantastic choices, Jackie. I have been to all three and would love to visit each again.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am with you, Nancie. I could never get tired of any of those destinations.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great memories! I love how you described your first trip to Hawaii. And the cruise without clothes also sounds really special. How nice of people to loan you clothes. Thanks for sharing your stories!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Christina, Thanks for stopping by TravelnWrite - your blog Jandal Road is great, btw.

    ReplyDelete

We have been having problems in recent weeks with our comment section and I am not quite sure how to fix it. Thanks for letting us know. Some comments have been coming in as emails, so I will respond to those as I get them.