TRAVEL WHILE YOU CAN

TRAVEL WHILE YOU CAN

by Dennis Ginoza   October 19, 2012

            A bit of wisdom was passed on to me years ago:  “Travel while you’re young.  Don’t wait until you’re old like us.  It’s hard to get around.”

            One Sunday morning in September, Sylvia and I were in church and during the informal time of prayer and joy, I expressed thanks—we were celebrating our Wedding Anniversary that day.  I mentioned that in our 40 years, we have traveled to 17 different countries.

            A couple sitting behind us was curious about this.  Unknown to us, the woman said to her husband, “How many countries have we been to?”  During the rest of the service, they were listing all the countries they had visited.

            Immediately after the service, they came up to us to tell us they had been to 18 countries, one more than we had.  We all had a big laugh.

            Since I retired three years ago from pastoral ministry, Sylvia the year before me from a librarian career , yes, we have traveled a lot.   Since July, 2009 to now, October, 2012, we have been to 30 different states, such places as Canada, and Washington, D.C. including Hawaii, Florida, Minnesota, and Maine.  Each place has its own fascination.

            This year, 2012, our incentives to travel continued.  Our son Jeremy graduated from his three year residency in osteopathic medicine in Yakima, Washington.   So here we go again, back up to Yakima to celebrate with him and Melanie his graduation, a highlighted moment for all of us.  Spending time with Kenan, our grandson, was an added joy.

            That same week, we helped them pack, clean, and move.  The day we arrived, Jeremy said to me, “Dad, will you mow the lawn?  We have some people coming to look at the house, for rental.”  I had some hard jobs—mowed the lawn, cleaned out the fire place and the dirty barbeque, and drove the U-Haul to the storage unit.  Sylvia had the easy part:  she looked after Kenan.

            This was the setting for still another trip—travel to Maine.  Jeremy received a year’s fellowship in Augusta, Maine.  Sylvia and I had never been to Maine.  We also wanted to see the fall colors so the timing was perfect.

            While the memory is still fresh, for my own benefit, I’d like to recall the places of interest and memorable encounters.

             Jeremy and Melanie and Kenan live in a quaint home in Chelsea, five miles from Augusta.  They have neighbors who have adopted Kenan, and look after them like an extended family.  Jeremy’s added study is in neuromuscloskeletal medicine in Waterville and Augusta.  About Kenan—he is walking, he loves tomatoes, and his life is  disciplined, to bed at 6:00 p.m. and he is a neat little boy with a pretty smile and disposition.  Melanie is a super mom.

            One Sunday we worshipped at the church where Jeremy and Melanie attend—Gardiner Nazarene Church.  It was an ordinary service, it wasn’t an ordinary service.  The preacher was a candidate under consideration to be called as their new pastor.  His wife and two children joined him.  The day before he had undergone a four hour interview.  Then, after the service, we were not dismissed, they moved right into the congregational meeting.  For an hour, that’s as long as we stayed, people asked the pastor questions about his ministry, what his plans were.  I would like to have asked him two questions, yes, I really would like to have, but I didn’t.  I was just a visitor, a retired pastor, at that.  This young man has a successful youth ministry in Ohio with a large youth group and this will be his first senior pastor position.  (We United Methodists could consider including such a congregational meeting:  wouldn’t that be interesting?)

            In our rental car, as we drove through Maine, every highway is lined with trees, millions of trees.  The leaves had begun to change but we were just a bit early.  Last year Maine’s peak was September 29, we arrived there on the 20^th.

            When we were visiting with a classmate of mine from high school, Kenneth Takayama and his wife Nina in Kennebunk, we indicated to them that we had plans to drive up to New Brunswick to be further north for the colors.  His wife who is from New Brunswick said, “You’re not going north, you’re just going farther east.”  She called her sister to check on the colors.  They just started to change.  The orange and reds and gold had not come yet.

            We re-routed.  We visited New Hampshire instead.  The White Mountain National Forest was the treasure we hoped for.  The thirty seven mile drive from Conway to Lincoln along the Kancamagus Road was just the most beautiful site—the colors were rich and peaking.

One woman we met said, “You gotta visit the Mt. Washington Hotel!”  A ranger told us:  “The most beautiful drive is the Bear Notch Road between highway 112 and highway 302.  They were right!

            When you enter a new state or a new region, it is always wise to stop at the information center.  Sylvia told the ranger, we hadn’t seen any moose.  He said, “You don’t want to see any moose.  They’re big and if you meet them on the road, they move real slow.  You don’t want to see a moose!”  I told him, we are planning to go to Vermont, just to say, we have stepped on Vermont dirt.”  He said, “Oh, if you want to step on dirt, come to my house!”  We drove to St. Johnsbury and stepped on Vermont dirt!

            The day we drove on the Kancamagus Highway, the sun was shining, the leaves were bristling in light.  The next few days, it rained and rained.  We lucked out!  (Just yesterday, Sylvia was at the Fallbrook Post Office and met a man who just got back from Maine.  He said, “It was the worst rain he had seen and the leaves had fallen.”  Yes, we were lucky.   A ranger told us that the peak season for the foliage lasts two weekends:  a short time line.  We also learned that if it fails to frost, the leaves will just turn brown.

            When we were returning to Augusta from Conway, New Hampshire, we passed through the town of Winthrop.  Just then Sylvia remembered someone we knew lived there.  We knew that Bob and Gladys Darby of San Diego had a son somewhere in Maine.  Ah!  Winthrop.  That Saturday Sylvia called, “Yes, come on over!”  His parents are now gone.  Bob is a professional photographer and his photos have been displayed on many book covers and his wife is a librarian.  So guess where else we went?  To the library of Winthrop.

           
              This is a small world.  Some folks we knew at the Santee United Methodist Church also live in Maine.  Carol and Terry Clark, now retired from the US Navy live there.  So we had an evening in Windham, Maine with the Clarks,  seeing their now grown daughters, Bridgett and Meredith and their families, and they Jeremy and Melanie and Kenan.  Carol even offered:  “Sylvia, when you come to Maine to see Kenan again, I will pick you up at the airport.”  Our evening ended up at the Windham Congregational Church benefit dinner.  Also, Rick and Carolyn Draheim whom we knew in Santee drove down from Waterville to join us.

            While our trip essentially was planned to see Jeremy, Melanie, and Kenan and the fall foliage, as our travels often change—it became a trip to New England.

            In Boston we visited with Wendy & Doug Bonnell and their boys, Alec sophomore), Austin (8^th grade), and James (4^th).  We saw Boston on an amphibious duck tour of many historical sites.  We later drove by Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, and Harvard University.  The Freedom trail took us on foot to the Paul Revere House and the church where the people were warned about the British invasion.  As we were told, “You don’t want to drive through Boston.”  Glad Wendy did!  The Bonnells have settled well and Doug loves his engineering job.

            It was fun for us to visit with Aaron and Elaina in Washington, D.C.  Seeing the Washington Mall at night was spectacular:  the Lincoln Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial, and the World War II Memorial.  The Vietnam Memorial is not for night visiting:  The dark marble cannot be seen in the dark.  The Newseum is fascinating, taking you through the events of our time.  Plan to spend three hours for a good visit.

            We met Aaron’s little adopted brother, Walter.  Walter lives with his grandmother and his two aunts.  Walter was born pre-mature and weighed only about a pound and a half,  yet was nursed to health.  Abandoned by his father, Aaron and Elaina’s support of him is an incredible story in itself.

            By Amtrak, we headed for Virginia to visit with Sylvia’s classmate, from kindergarten to high school:  Janet and her husband Dave Kyle, in Wicomoco in Gloucester Country.  We visited historical Jamestown, the first  settlement in America (May, 1607).  In Williamsburg, we sat in the pews where George Washington and Thomas Jefferson sat for Sunday worship. 

            Then, our journey took us to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, for a visit with Sylvia’s cousin, Jean & CB Chappell.  They hosted us kindly. We stayed in a beach house in Kitty Hawk, a land mass which is a sandy peninsula.  The wind of the sea helped Wilbur and Orville Wright to complete history’s first flight in their double wing airplane on December 17, 1903.  They did four flights that day, the first lasting 12 seconds and reached 120 feet.  The second reached 175 feet, the third 200 feet. The fourth flight reached 852 feet in 59 seconds.  Three elements were necessary in aviation:  lift, power, and control.   Since then, our world has changed.

            On a ferry, we traveled from Hatteras Pt. to Ocracoke, then on another ferry, we enjoyed the fascination of sea travel to Cedar Island.  Our destination was Moorehead City where the Chappells have their home.  Visits to the lighthouses remind us of the importance of the water ways along coastal North Carolina.  We received more history of the area at Fort Macon where the War of 1812 and the Civil War have become a part of America’s history.

            This was long journey, it seemed very long, living out of our suitcases, hauling our suitcases through check points, on the Metro, from one car trunk to another, up and down stairs, and from one airport to another.

            Yes, we did have a lobster roll in Boothbay Harbor and lots of sea food for lunch and dinner at many places, went apple picking in Maryland, saw the lobster traps in Kennebunk, drove to Cape Cod and visited the John F. Kennedy Museum, worshipped at the historical Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church where Aaron had attended, learned that Boston has 137 Dunkin Donuts, spent the day in Pawtucket (home of America’s industrial revolution) and Providence, Rhode Island, a first for us.  In New Hampshire, at the state capital of Concord, we learned that the legislators don’t receive a salary, just minimum compensation to cover costs—a fair idea, I’d say.

            Just before we left for Maine, I received a note from Jeanette Firth.  Her pastor husband Warren recently had died.  Jeanette and Warren served with me on staff in Santee.  In her note she said, “Warren and I met at the Mt. Vernon Church.  Warren and his two brothers also attended there while they were at Wesley Seminary.”  Our many path often intersect in time. 

            After our worship service, I met a well dressed man named Bill.  I said, “Bill, I love your shirt.”  In the conversation he found out, we were Aaron’s parents.  Wow!  He said, “We miss Aaron.”  He went on:  “Jenny and Max, come here.  Meet Aaron’s parents!”  Then he introduced us to Rev. Donna Claycomb Sokol.  “Donna, guess whose these two remind you of?”  Aaron Ginoza.  One never knows where our footprints will lead us and how they leave a mark.

            Upon completing this trip, I can now claim, I have been to 46 states in the USA, only missing South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.  Sylvia has gone through Georgia on the way to Florida.

            We don’t know where our next trip will be, but we do know, it will be in our van where we can take with us whatever we need and not be confined to a fifty pound suitcase and one carry on, and where we don’t have to take our shoes off by mandate.