As I try and get back into the groove of consistently posting on my website I wanted to delve into another passion of mine and many. Travel. While I’m not a big fan of the term “bucket list” I will use it here to refer to those destinations you feel you must see before leaving this beautiful planet. However, with it’s negative connotation attached, I would prefer to call it something more like “Life’s Adventures List”. OK, maybe it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Maybe call it your LAL. It’s a work in progress.
Whatever your reference, we all have a list of things we would want to do, or see or create. Some of us might not even be aware of all of them until you start experiencing and opening up the realm of possibilities. Many prefer to live vicariously through others. Sorry kids…. it’s not the same. That being said, I understand the many obstacles one might have in front of them in obtaining any of these items on the list. I have a name for that list too. It’s not a nice name, so I’ll leave it to your imagination by saying it sounds much like bucket list, but begins with the letter F. Yes…..you got it….probably.
The point is, we can always have reasons for not doing things. I’m not saying they often aren’t valid reasons. What I am saying, is that if you really want to knock that item off of your list, you will find a way.
Early in my life I traveled very little. In fact, as a child I had just a mere handful of travel experiences. Make that three, that I remember. None of them would I call great successes or fun. I’ll try and be brief, but to help put into perspective how much my life and travel experiences have changed, I think it’s a necessary recap.
When I was very young I remember a family journey to Cape Cod. My Dad was in a partnership in a dry cleaning business in Queens. We rented a small bungalow that you could walk to the beach along with his business partner’s family. I do remember it was a bay beach, so it was safer for all of us kids at the time.
My highlights in memory from that trip were as follows. Always being stuck in traffic if we attempted to go anywhere. My Dad and his friend renting a sailboat and capsizing on the bay. No, we were not in the boat. The finishing touch was my Dad attempting to ride some kind of motorbike and crashing it into the car of someone in the bungalow next to us. Nobody got hurt, except the car, my Dad’s ego and perhaps his wallet.
Another family trip I remember was to Washington DC.. It was the early 70s I believe. It was the period in which they were digging up areas around our nation’s capitol to create a rail system. Mind you, why on earth my parents would think to go to Washington DC in the summer they are tearing up the city for a family vacation, I have no idea. In addition, they have no hotel booked or any plan for that matter. It was a very hot July day and after traveling in the morning through the most dense fog that I can remember to this day, we arrived in Washington DC around noon.
As a young child you are not always privy or aware of the conversations going on between your parents. It did become apparent we did not have a place to stay yet, nor could we find any parking. We drove around and around and the tension in the car became thicker and thicker. I think my mom may have run out to check on a hotel availability at one point, but that came up empty.
The next thing I knew we were driving over the Potomac River into Virginia. I heard something about JFK being mentioned. As we kept driving I started to see more and more tombstones. We were in a cemetery?!! Yes indeed, we were in the Arlington National Cemetery, home of the JFK eternal flame grave. I guess the thinking was, finally some parking and a bathroom break. Also, a little piece of history as well. So we all got out, did our business, looked at the grave for 5 minutes and packed back into the car.
At this point I have no idea of what’s going on. Eventually I realize we are heading back home. That’s right, a round trip by car from Ozone Park, Queens to Washington DC without finding a place to park or stay. Summer trip…….over. I do remember the other highlight was stopping in a diner outside of Baltimore and having a hamburger. Boy, was my back to school paper on my summer vacation going to be gripping or what?
I’ll bore you with one other ridiculous attempt at a mini vacation for the young Cimino family. My Dad who worked for the US Post Office had a friend who had mentioned he took a road trip out to Montauk Point, Long Island. He said he had a great time and it was beautiful. So off we go Mom, Dad me and my brother and sister scrunched up into the car. I wondered what the plan was this time. Oh what’s that? There is no plan? “We will find a place to stay when we get there if it’s nice?” Where have I heard this story before.
Needless to say we are all a little older now and my brother, at 17 years old, really wants nothing to do with this trip or us. He’s eating a bag of pretzels in the backseat and occasionally throwing some pretzel crumbs out the window so when he escapes he can find his way home. I kid you not.
It was a close to three hour drive, but I remember pulling into the parking lot right by the Montauk lighthouse. They had bathrooms and a concession stand so we all got out and took a much needed bathroom break. My brother, still pretzel bag in hand.
I know I saw the light house when we pulled in and it was pretty cool to see one up close for the first time. I’m not exactly sure how long we all were in the restroom, but when we came back outside the lighthouse was gone. A wall of fog had rolled in from off the Atlantic and swallowed the lighthouse. The next thing that happened scared the pretzels out of me and my brother. This deep booming horn that reverberated through your chest from head to toe sounded. It was the horn of the lighthouse alerting boaters stuck out in the fog.
To put the finishing touches on this one, my parents decided to wait it out a bit I suppose. My sister, Diane and I went out to walk along these rocks up against the beach. Probably not the safest thing for two kids to be doing. Then again I’m pretty sure none of us were wearing seatbelts either for the entire trip. Different era indeed. Anyway as Cimino luck should have it on any family vacation my sister slips and loses one of her shoes down into the rocks. This thing fell into the abyss between all the rocks and we had a better chance tracing my brothers pretzel crumbs than finding her shoe.
So there we were in “beautiful” Montauk Point Long Island. My brother now really grumpy as he ran out of pretzels. My sister hopping around on one foot and shoe and me staring at the fog trying to see the lighthouse. You can guess by now where this is going. Back into the car we went, to make the ride back home.
Almost forgot one last thing about this trip. Along the road across that part of Long Island many farmers would sell fresh produce. Somewhere along the way home my Dad sees a sign that says potatoes 5 cents per pound. Wow!!! Such a deal!!! I can remember my Dad proudly putting this 20 or 30 pound bag of potatoes into the trunk of the car. This trip was going to be worth it after all.
When we got home after another “summer vacation” of spending more time sitting in a car than sightseeing, my Dad unloaded the sack of potatoes. When we opened the bag to share some with my grandparents who lived in the apartment upstairs from us, the final surprise was revealed. The majority of what was in the bag was not potatoes. It was more like 20 pounds of solid rocks!!! Yep, could have boiled those babies until kingdom come, but they weren’t becoming potatoes.
So there are my three great travel memories as a child. The point of these stories is to say, don’t let the past dictate the future. As my life went on I would eventually climb out of the travel nightmare phase and into experiencing some of the most amazing life changing moments via seeing the world. It took decades, but I got there. I have so much more I want to see and experience for as long as I can do so.
In the posts ahead I hope to write about my experiences from past journeys to future ones as well. From the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of Africa. From Singapore to Amsterdam to Barcelona. Your journey’s don’t have to be that far or exotic. Sometimes just exploring something in your relative “backyard” that you’ve never seen or experienced can be a worthy trip. Until next time.
Sunshine Always!!
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