Category: Living Well

A Hike for the Favorites List!

I’ve been lots of places and have done lots of hiking. 40+ countries, 50 states, 40+ national parks around the world. So it isn’t every day that I can say that I’ve done a hike that I consider one of the best I’ve ever done. It hasn’t happened in a while, as I’m sometimes drawn to going back to the same places (hello, Moab, Utah!) to do the same trails that are already on the list. That changed on the trip that I just returned from.

Before I reveal where I took all these incredible shots, let me offer my disclaimer for this post. You probably won’t find the usual choices on my list. You also won’t have to slog two hundred miles to complete one of the entries in my favor. My choices are not two thousand mile trails like “the Appalachian Trail” or “the Continental Divide Trail.” I find articles that site gargantuan trails ridiculous, and written by people who know nothing about hiking, who have clearly never completed the trails in question. I also get tired of the same long hikes on every list, like “the Milford Track” in New Zealand. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that all the hikes I’ve mentioned are incredible. I’ve experienced parts of some of them. But they’re general suggestions, not specific. The hikes on my list are specific and can be done in a day, some in a couple of hours. The one pictured here took two hours, and packed more of a punch than many that I’ve spent days and days discovering.

Where is this trail? Valley of Fire State Park, sixty miles north of Las Vegas, which looks like a national park. We’re talking Nevada, USA, and close to a major city and tourist attraction. I had been here two other times, and thought it was time to go back. In spite of some pretty crazy weather during my week in Sin City, I got a perfect day for hiking, just no sun or blue sky, which would have made for even better pictures!

I had already done the Fire Wave Trail on my last visit. Here’s a picture of me from 2015:

And here’s me this year:

The scenery hasn’t changed much. But the hiker sure has!

This is an easy trail to find, as it is right off the Parking #3 lot. It’s also simple to follow, as it is a one trail deal down to the Fire Wave. The change in scenery along the way is incredible! First, massive walls of red Aztec sandstone beckon from ahead, with soft green mounds of limestone in the foreground. Christmas colors for hikers! Where can you say that you’ve seen red and green rocks, and in the same place?

Once past the rocks, the whole landscape changes to red and white striped sandstone underfoot with pastel sandstone views of aptly named Pink Canyon in the near distance. After a short and mildly steep descent, the Fire Wave comes into view, with a smaller mound next to it. Turn in a three-sixty and just marvel at your surroundings!

Most people choose to do an out and back on this trail. But if you want to do the Seven Wonders Loop, which I’ve come to understand was just opened to the public in 2021, you can proceed to the bottom of the wavy rocks to this sign, and continue on:

Things get a little less obvious once you hit this trail, and they get worse as you go along. But don’t let that stop you! I latched on to a family and another solitary lady (from Germany!) to figure out how to do this loop. We figured it out as a team. Also be warned that a few of the slot canyons, which are normally part of the trail, had to be hiked around because of flooding. The incredible photo opportunities made the extra hiking well worth it! I call views like this “National Geographic material.”

Once you have gone around the water keep in mind that you will have to cross the park road to finish the loop. You will also have to climb back to the parking lot. If you’re really worried you can always take the road, which is plenty scenic, but the stunning terrain you’ll miss will make you want to take the chance of getting a little off track now and then. Don’t expect cairns like on many established trails in the American West (because there are often no trees to put blazes on!) but metal markers can be found along the way. Keep following the general path of the road and you will make it back to the lot without too much trouble. And you’ll see this jaw-dropping stuff along the way:

Seven Wonders? I vote to change the trail name to “A Thousand Wonders Trail!”

An extra added plus: the park was loaded with mountain goats that day!

For more on my favorite hikes, click here!

Cancer Builds Character

For those who don’t have cancer, the mere thought of it invading your body is mind boggling, shiver inducing, cringeworthy. You can lose sleep over this shit. I know, I’ve had plenty of sleepless nights. But those were early on in my journey. Three plus years in, I sleep like a baby. Which is not to say that I don’t think about it, that I don’t worry, that I’m not sad that cancer has changed my life in ways that I didn’t expect. Oh yeah, I experience all those things and more. But I’m not angry, and I know I’m a better person than I was before I was diagnosed. Cancer, my friends, builds character.

I’ve been called many things in the past three years, four months, and twelve days. (Yep, I remember the exact date I got the big news.) Warrior, brave, survivor, strong, bitch, sick, Cancer Barbie. I’ve been told that I have to die sometimes. (Imagine.) I’ve read crushing statistics on lung cancer. I’ve been asked time and again if I smoke. (Nope.) I’ve hiked thousands of miles. Traveled thousands more. Buried a sister. Retired from teaching. Seen cancer come and go in my lung, neck, sternum, stomach, pancreas, hips, and flank. Seen “healthy” people pass away before me. Bought a house. Wrote a book about my experience. Learned to like myself again. Learned who really loves me. Learned who my friends are and who aren’t. Learned so much about myself. Learned things that I never wanted to know. Cancer was there the whole time, guiding my way.

In fact, for me, cancer is not going away completely until a cure is discovered. To prove it, my little friend is flaring up in the aforementioned flank, and I will need to have day surgery to get rid of it, once again prompting the kinder of the words: strong, brave, amazing. I don’t feel any of those things. Damn it, I just want to live my life. It just keeps getting interrupted by this disease. I don’t have a choice but to be strong, brave, and amazing. It’s a whole lot better than the alternative. And man, I’m pretty lucky to have choices in the matter. To have a alternative to the alternative. To keep living my life with periodic annoyances. So many people with cancer don’t have these choices.

I’ve consistently and extensively traveled the world, the country, and my local area. Once, when it seemed that I had a lot less to worry about than now, I was in a group of travelers at my school. I still see the people I effortlessly traveled with doing the same thing I used to do with them. Truth is, I still do it too, just with more planning and caution. COVID19 slowed me down a lot more than cancer did. The point being, I can still do what I love. With cancer! But back to the crowd I used to globetrot with. I’m not asked to join anymore. That’s okay, I have a travel companion or two, and I love hitting the road and the sky on my own. I’ve changed too, my priorities are different. I’m not counting countries anymore. I’m going where I really want to go, even if I’ve been there ten times before, even if others are in “exotic” venues and I’m hiking a national park or exploring some abandoned place with cool graffiti. In short, I have nothing in common with most of these people any longer. Being left behind is fine. I’m good. I have experience now that most of them wouldn’t understand or acknowledge or care about. Why would I want to be with them? My entire way of thinking and seeing the world has evolved. I have more respect for the cancer infested me than the earlier me.

If cancer builds character, man, do I have character! And as mentioned above, I’m currently in the throes of gaining more, what with my “side bump” growing again, a literal “thorn in my side.” In some crazy way I’ll be happy to get rid of the little bugger; it’s lodged in my skin on my right flank at the tenth rib, and though it has not been any bother in two years, before then it gave me hell. Buh-bye!

What are the most character building lessons I’ve learned from cancer?

That cancer is a bigger bitch than I am. But only sometimes. That if I give up even for a minute, I’ll die. That I’m extremely lucky in an unlucky situation. That I can’t count on my current family members for anything, unless I want to play their game, stoop to their level, or be subjected to their vitriol. I’ve learned to reach out to friends, as tough as it is for me to ask them for anything. The rest of the time, I’ve learned more than ever to count on my cancer ridden self. I’ve learned that so many things that used to concern me really don’t matter in the big picture of life. I’ve learned to turn my back on situations and people that aren’t worth my time. I know how to pick my battles well now. I’ve truly learned the lessons of survival.

But what I have learned most of all is this: there is no bigger fight than the fight for your life. If you’ve never experienced having your very existence in jeopardy, you wouldn’t truly know what I’m talking about, no matter how much you think you do. Never underestimate the power of impending death to change you or that person that you know is struggling.

Respect, please.

Don’t Rush Me

The eye of the storm. That’s where I was for decade upon decade. Life was seemingly calm, but in reality I was surrounded by thunder and lightning and high winds and debris, all ready to take me down unexpectedly at any moment. I was a moving target. The butt of sick jokes and harassment. The subject on everyone’s lips. Running running, running. And trying to hide from prying eyes.

That’s all over now. I’ve found peace, and silence. But the real world is never far enough away.

My cocoon is the retirement community I recently moved to. It’s located off a busy state highway. I’m way up in the back, away from it all, with a farm behind me and wildlife trotting and winging through my yard. Yet I only have to leave the premises in order to get a quick reminder that the uncivilized world awaits, and that the inhabitants are in a tremendous rush to go absolutely nowhere. Well, world, I will not be rushed by you anymore. I’ve earned my slow stripes. Please, pass me by as fast as you wish, and go along your silly, speedy ways. Put away your middle fingers, switch your low beams back on, and just GO.

My feelings about humanity’s need for speed is well documented, no big secret. What I don’t quite get, and never will, is what the gain is, and why people have to jeopardize the safety of others in order to satisfy their own stupidity.

Case in point: I left the retirement community the other day, and within thirty seconds, even though I looked both ways before I pulled out, I had a speeding white car on my back bumper. This, in total disregard of the fact that the speed limit falls ten digits where I pull onto the state highway, and it goes from a two lane divided raceway to a one lane regular road. A messy road construction job with barrels and lane shifts is right up ahead, with a greatly reduced speed limit. No way I’m driving through that too fast. Mr. White Car had no such qualms. On a solid line, he blew past me effortlessly and ploughed through the road construction without applying the brakes once.

Not far up the road and I’m minding my business driving forty-five in a forty-five. Someone cuts me off from a side road and proceeds to drive thirty-five. Before I’m driving for ten minutes I’ve been cut off three more times. But here’s the kicker: Mr. White Car Wanna Be Race Care Driver? Mr. Tailgater? I end up right behind him at the next stop light. What has he gained? Answer: nothing. Except for endangering his life and those around him.

Don’t rush me.

Next, I pull up to the ATM and start getting my card out of my wallet. I’m ready to open my car door and step up to the machine when a man pulls into the lot next to me, jumps out of his car, and strides toward the glass door ahead of me. Too bad for him that he has to fumble through his wallet to open the damn thing because in his rush to beat me to the money he didn’t have his card ready. Is it terrible for me to wish that he’s one of those people who has no money to take out in the first place, and that he will stomp out saying that the machine is “broken?”

And hey, what ever happened to “ladies first?”

My favorite is when someone is blinding me with their headlights only to pull into Dunkin Donuts and into a snaking line in the drive through. (And no one is inside!) Enjoy your coffee, dummy.

It’s not all about the way we drive. There are the shoppers in the supermarket sighing because I don’t put my food on the belt fast enough, or swipe my debit card skillfully enough, or move my cart out of the aisle exactly when they want me to. They start getting testy, I start making eye contact. And I am the queen of eye contact. I’m a teacher by trade. I can stare anyone down. Don’t tempt me.

Or rush me.

Believe it or not folks, not everyone feels the need to save thirty seconds to get to a stop light before someone else. Listen to John Lennon’s song “Watching the Wheels.” If a Beatle can stop playing the game, can’t just about anyone?

The bigger picture is that so many of us have stopped being polite, have stopped caring about anyone but number one, have stopped caring about much of anything, including safety and common sense and life.

No wonder I like my little retirement community so much. I’m thankful to have an escape from the nonsense.

And remember, if we ever meet, you can do anything as quickly as you want, but DON’T RUSH ME.

Good-bye, 2022

Happy New Year!

New Year’s used to be my favorite holiday, a pivotal day when everything is seemingly shiny and fresh. New pursuits, new goals, new, new, new! This year the day passed like any other. I had to remind myself on the eve of the new year that it really was the eve of a new year. I don’t know about anyone else, but the so-called “holiday season” didn’t feel like a holiday season this year, in fact it didn’t feel like much of anything. Maybe it’s because of what the past couple months of my life have been like. Whatever the reason, I’m glad it’s gone for another year. Please take down your trees and lights and save on your electric bill.

I got caught up in the Southwest Airlines mess. Instead of flying south to see my niece on the 23rd I received a text at 4:00am telling me to stay in bed because my flight was cancelled, along with 7,000 others. I didn’t make it to South Carolina until Christmas evening. After a couple of good days with my niece (and a big, beautiful turkey feast at 9:00pm on the 25th!) I got dreadfully ill with a sinus infection, made my first out of state visit to an urgent care center, and spent the next three days in bed. A fitting end to a year of many gains that failed to make up for a crushing loss.

No matter how many trips I took or successes I had they can never make up for the loss of my sister Marie. I miss her so badly, wish she could share in the good things that happened to me in 2022. Purchasing my beautiful little house and finally finding domestic peace, resuming international travel, surviving a deadly disease for yet another year; having Marie here to be proud of me would make all the difference, would have made 2022 a different kind of year. No matter what I do now the losses that I’ve dealt with always outweigh the good.

Sorry for being so depressing!

Yes, the traveling was great, I love my home, and I continue to beat the odds of Stage IV Lung Cancer. Perhaps the best thing that happened in 2022 is that my incredible sister Jeanne survived a potentially fatal surgery to remove a huge staghorn kidney stone. Click on the link and read a little about them. Look up some images. They’re disgusting. Jeanne had been fighting infection, sepsis, and constant hospitalizations that only worsened as time went by. Her surgery was a last resort, and she got the best care possible. I’ll just bet Marie had something to do with her success. What a bright spot that I still have her.

I have not formally made any resolutions for 2023. But I have something nagging at me that really is kind of a resolution: to get serious about writing again. Before cancer, all I blabbed about was writing, traveling and writing. Since my diagnosis I’ve managed to pen a book about my journey back to life, and I’ve blogged here all along. Yet I lost the passion and the hunger, and I have not gotten it back to date. It’s time to regain it. I once wrote two extensive books at the same time, and self published seven books in a matter of a few years! Recently I read through my “cancer journey book,” sent it to a close and brilliant friend of mine, and his interest has given me back a glimmer of the ambition I once had. I’m changing my in progress page to reflect my renewed interest in “Destination Life.” Have a look and tell me what you think!

I’m also making lists of publishers of memoires, short stories, and articles on health and wellness, hoping to kickstart my interest again by doing a variety of writing, and maybe even putting some of my old but worthy stuff out there and seeing if anyone bites. So many times I’ve vowed that I would put myself to making a part-time career out of writing. Vows and lists have to be backed up by action. Instead, I play with my phone or watch Hulu. I guess I’ve earned my right to do that. But I feel like I’m cheating myself. No time like the present to light a fire under my own butt, right?

Hey! I just changed the whole appearance of my website, yet another thing that has been on the to-do list for months and only got done now. Yay, me! Could the thirst to write again be just around the corner? My fingers are crossed!

Until then, please enjoy some of my favorite memories from 2022!

I’m Still Standing!

Hey, I thought that it would be a little while between posts, but I didn’t expect for it to be this long! It’s all good. If anyone missed me, thank you. If anyone was concerned that my absence was health-related, thank you also. I’m happy to report that I’ve been “away” for mostly good reasons! Not only have I bought myself some privacy and peace and quiet, but in between real estate demands I took my first trip out of the country with cancer as my sidekick, and enjoyed another holiday with my niece in South Carolina. In between all that, I’ve been moving, a thankless necessity for the most part! The best things about moving are that I’m getting rid of things I don’t need anymore, and I’ll hopefully never have to do it again! At least that’s what I’m shooting for.

As for the traveling, I’m shooting to do that a lot more! But let’s talk about what has kept me from blogging, and just about everything else normal, in the order that it happened. Starting with my new house!

If you’ve never bought real estate before and anyone tells you that it’s fun and a dream come true, don’t believe them. The end result should be a dream fulfilled, but the road to get there is full of disappointment, annoyance, and demanding people who don’t care that you have a life outside of their sphere. If you’re a dummy like me and decide to be nice to a brand new agent and help her get her first sale, you’ll be even more miserable. I can’t even count the times I wanted to ditch the entire transaction and rent for the rest of my life. But I stuck with it and am the proud owner of a beautiful home in a retirement community, a major chip off my Bucket List and something I’ve been planning for some time.

Ten days before my scheduled closing day I flew to Ireland to get away from it all. Yes, the timing was really crazy! But the truth is that I planned the trip way back in March and it just happened to come up in the middle of all the house buying madness! Here I am showing off at Giant’s Causeway. As you can see the weather was quite favorable. The sun was out most days, and if we got rain it was only a passing shower and didn’t ruin any plans. The rainbows were pretty great!

Amongst other things, Ireland is well known for its pubs. I swore that I would not fall into that mold. But guess who spent a lot of time sipping wine in pubs every night? Yeah, you guessed right! And I loved it! Ireland is a triple threat in my book: a beautiful country, with nice people, and great food. What’s not to love?

So then it was back home for more madness. Packing and moving time! I had been in my duplex for nineteen years and had accumulated a lot of stuff. What a job! I also had yet another trip on the schedule, to pup sit my dog children in South Carolina, Jaxson and Chevelle, while my niece visited her in-laws in Florida. This was some much needed rest and relaxation, and I had the good intention of putting out a blog while there, but guess what? WordPress wouldn’t open! I have no clue why. So, no blog. But plenty of dog.

Back home, my move continued. It’s interesting how you can get a taste for something even though it’s grueling, and I got a good taste for gathering boxes, deciding what was getting packed and what was going in the trash, and being ready for the mover, who was so great and helpful. In the end, we got a big job done in about a month, doing three small moves instead of one big one.

Deep sigh.

That wasn’t the end of my challenges. My precious sister Jeanne had kidney surgery and was laid up in Boston for two weeks. She just got home today and I get to see her before Christmas!

As I type this I’m supposed to be landing in Greenville, South Carolina. But my flight was canceled early this morning because of the huge storm blanketing many areas of the country. I’m rescheduled to fly in on Christmas Day, so all has not been lost.

And oh, I retired from teaching yesterday!

Are you dizzy? Yeah, me too! When your head stops spinning have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I’ll will too!

Be back soon!

Dispelling Cancer Myths

Cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer!

Sheesh, you probably say, does this woman think about anything else besides CANCER?

Truth is, I think about A LOT of other things besides cancer. In fact, I’ve hardly thought about cancer at all in the past month because I have been so busy trying to make important changes in my life. But time and time again I come up with more things I want to write about the subject, and let’s be honest, don’t you want to read about life with cancer from someone who actually IS living life with cancer? Instead of a so-called “expert” who writes for one of those cheesy medical sites? Thought so.

This time around I will expand on something I’ve toyed with in other posts: myths about cancer. I have five biggies to cover, fictitious beliefs that I have encountered time and again in the past three years of my “journey.” Here goes!

People get lung cancer from smoking. Therefore, they deserve it. This is totally false, and I know this firsthand. While I smoked long ago, I quit when I was seventeen years old, a full thirty-five years before my diagnosis. Non-smoker lung cancer cases are on the rise from environmental factors such as longtime exposure to radon, which is now the second biggest reason (behind smoking) that people get lung cancer. Neither of these was why I got it. My lung cancer was a genetic alteration. So, asking me smoking related questions is really shitty and ignorant, and if I spit at you remember you asked for it. Don’t do it to anyone, because you really don’t know the reason. And even if the person in question got it from smoking, it’s pretty crappy to assume anyone deserves to have a disease because of a bad habit that is very hard to kick.

All women who get cancer want to be referred to as “warriors.” Nope. Wrong again. I feel like this myth is embedded deep in our culture, since my recent post about this very subject was hardly read or commented on, was even largely ignored by a faithful group of friends who regularly read and applaud my stuff. Yeah, it’s tough for someone to speak the truth and go against the grain of what the general population wants to believe. It’s just so interesting to envision a woman with cancer fighting with all she has and, sometimes, going down in a blaze of glory. Well let me further burst your bubble: there isn’t any glory in dying of cancer. I watched my sister perish from the same curse I’m stuck with now. And I’ll say it again, from my own personal experience: I’m not interested in being your warrior. All I’m interested in is being ME. And I know for sure that I’m not the only cancer survivor who feels this way.

“Big Pharma” is Withholding a Cure for Cancer. This makes me want to scream. Again and again, I notice something really interesting about this myth: the individuals who believe it don’t have cancer. They are experts at something they have never experienced firsthand. I have not heard anyone with cancer make this claim. Because we know that it’s nonsense. “Big Pharma” would make ten times more money curing cancer than they would withholding a cure for cancer. Think about it. I never believed this claim even before I was diagnosed, even from the outside not wanting to see inside. Now, from the inside looking out, I’m in even more disbelief that anyone could be so stupid as to believe it.

Only Unhealthy People Get Cancer. I was one of the healthiest people out there, always took care of myself, was in great shape, ate as well as I could, didn’t and don’t have any bad habits. It would seem that my vigilance didn’t work, but when looked at another way, one could easily say that the reason I’m still alive and kicking is because I was healthy to start with. In fact, when I asked my former oncologist why I “made it” when so many others don’t, he pointed to my lifestyle before cancer as one of the two biggest factors. (The other one is that I have continued to live my life similarly post-diagnosis.) When people claim that they are healthy and won’t get ill because they eat their vegetables and drink their green tea, I just smile, knowing the irony. Living a healthy existence can prepare you for if and when the worst happens to you, but it doesn’t always mean that the worst isn’t going to happen.

Stage IV Cancer is a Death Sentence. Walking around with the knowledge that you have cancer at the deadliest stage is hardly a picnic, but it isn’t necessarily a death sentence anymore. Targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and several other cutting edge treatments are working wonders for patients like yours truly and allowing us to not only live longer and live better, but to turn the tables on cancer, as well as the general perceptions surrounding it. For many of us, the days of suffering more from treatment than from the actual disease are in the past, and every day brings us closer and closer to a cure. I regularly have people tell me that if they didn’t know I have cancer they would never guess, because I look so healthy. I hope to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

To further illustrate the mythological aspect of the final item, I’m heading to Ireland next week, and I hereby promise to write a nice post (with lots of pictures!) that has nothing to do with cancer when I get back! Until then, I hope you will ponder what is true and what isn’t when you think about this awful disease.

Can I Start Fresh?

By now it’s common knowledge that I have a deadly disease. Almost daily I hear of another person who succumbs to Stage IV Lung Cancer. Almost daily I wonder when it will be my turn. And yet, thanks to modern medicine and my own sheer will to live and even thrive, I’ve survived for three years and am currently feeling pretty good and living my life much the way I always have. Still, questions loom whenever I think too hard about the future, and the biggest one is, do I even have a future to think about?

Many people reading this have no real idea what this feels like, and good for you, I used to be like you. Others will believe that they know what it’s like when they really don’t. Still others will just tell me to “get over it” and live my life, which I am, perhaps better than they are, but which they have no right to say. There will, however, be a handful of folks who will think, “I know exactly what she’s talking about.” They know that the “not knowing” makes planning for the future a weird thing. Suddenly, everything you do has a “twist,” perhaps even an expiration date.

I’m currently in the throes of making some major changes, particularly to my home and work life. In fact, I’m planning to change so much that I’ve been referring to it as a “fresh start,” which then triggers the inevitable inquiry: can I start fresh with a terminal illness? If the answer is “no” I guess that answer doesn’t really matter, because I’m moving ahead anyway! And if the answer is “yes” there is always that nagging feeling that I’ll end up really happy in my new life, then the rug will be pulled out from beneath me (again) by cancer and it will be all for nothing. Or I’ll die happy? Worse could happen; I could die miserable. But the point is that I don’t want to make all sorts of improvements only to end up on my last leg. Nor do I want to die with regrets. I have few if any as of now. Which only leads to another bit of confusion, because if I don’t move forward on my dreams and goals and I end up living for many more years (which isn’t impossible) it will be time wasted. Sounds like a recipe for regret to me. Who needs that?

Do you see my dilemma?

Admittedly, I’m not as ambitious as I once was. Is that all because of cancer? I can’t really answer that for certain. Perhaps it is, but I think that the changes in the world that COVID19 brought about have to be considered, and well, I’m not as young and idealistic that I used to be. Last post I revealed my personal Bucket List. Much of it is riddled with travel goals, but even those have changed, have become more focused. At one time I planned to get a PhD, travel the globe for two or three years nonstop, own a Victorian home, be a millionaire, write a bestselling novel. And a lot of other stuff that has long since disappeared from thought. Maybe I never really wanted those things, or maybe they were unrealistic. Now, I have six things on my goals list and just about all of them are right in front of me. In fact, one of them was basically offered to me today unexpectedly, once again proving that you just never know what is going to come your way, good, bad, or ugly. So I guess I will have to raise the bar a little. Or maybe, like John Lennon once said, I’m just watching the wheels go ’round and ’round. I’m damn tired, and maybe it’s just time to have a break. Is that giving up? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just a fresh start as a me that is a little older and wiser than the one before.

A few months ago I lost my dear sister Marie, leaving me with just a couple of people that I love and trust and whom truly love and trust me. My mother, who loved only one man her whole life (my dad!) once told me, “He gave me enough love to last me the rest of my life.” I’ll never forget her words, and I remember thinking, “I hope I feel that way someday.” Now, I believe I do. Not the same kind of love that Mom was talking about, but love from her and my dad, my sister Marie, my sister Jeanne, my niece Amanda. Why do I bring this up? Because my fresh start ties in with this. I’m not searching any longer, I’m no longer interested in being in the line of anyone’s fire, I won’t be subjected to conditional love. I’ve received enough love, and can live with what I still get. I’m okay, and I’ll take care of the people who take care of me.

Can I make a fresh start? I already am. Only time, if it is on my side, will tell how well I do.

It’s Bucket List Time!

Having a Bucket List is pretty much a given thing for most people, but did you ever think about the right time to start chipping away at it? I’ve spent so much time traveling and hiking and doing other things that I love to do that I feel like I’ve been barreling through my Bucket List for quite a while. However, less than a year ago I really started to narrow things down and decide what it is I still must do. Because…

*I’m not getting any younger. Are you?

*I have this crappy disease to contend with now.

*COVID19 changed the world for me and a lot of other people.

For all those reasons and more, I find that there are a lot of things I don’t want to do any longer, so I’m happy that I did them before now. For example: I have no real desire to sit on an airplane for twenty hours to get somewhere. (Though, given a few items on my list, I may find myself doing that at least a time or two more!) There are also things that I want to start doing, like experiencing cruises, which I have hardly done at all. I took these wishes into consideration when creating my list. My choices are truly a mix of old favorites and new interests.

Without further ado, let me share my personal Bucket List, including my progress at getting the items done. I eliminated a few this year!

Experiences

* Cruise to Antarctica. Yeah, this is top of the list, baby! I really wanted to see my seventh continent early in 2023. I’m ready. But wait! The two cruises that I narrowed my adventure down to are booked solid. No joke! Who knew that a legion of people around the world would be plunking down between $10,000 and $50,000 to board a ship for two weeks or more to see penguins and seals? Not me! But you can bet I’ll be first in line in 2024!

* Greenland Cruise. One of my travel friends and I have been talking about this one for a couple of years now, and we came oh so close to booking it for next July. Then…she backed out. I’m crushed. But I will find a way!

*Alaska Cruise. I’ve road tripped the Last Frontier twice, but have never been to southern Alaska, where there are no roads. Must get there. Not sure when this will happen, but this one will definitely be easier to pull off than the two above. Glacier Bay National Park will be part of the package. More on why below!

*Hiking in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Over and over again I see St. John touted as an amazing place to hike, always as sure sign that I’ll be interested. Not sure why I haven’t jumped on this one yet.

*Australian Outback. Uh-oh, twenty hour flight! But I know it will be worth it. I’ve been Down Under once already and must go back before I leave this world.

*See the Pigs in the Bahamas. I kid you not! I’ll spend the whole trip on the beach with the pigs then come home happy. Probably another cruise. Do you see a pattern here?

*Hiking in Hawaii. Oh, and I just figured out how to get to American Samoa, so add that to this particular adventure.

Countries

*Costa Rica. I was scheduled to go in December of 2021 when COVID19 was still a hot topic. I couldn’t risk getting stuck in a foreign country, so cancelled. No plans to reschedule, but not giving up.

*Brazil. I never wanted to go here until I saw some pictures of Rio on Instagram, then it shot to the top of the list. And I want to see that big waterfall while there too. Likely to be a part of my Antarctic adventure in 2024.

*Return to Portugal. This one tugs at my heart strings, because I had to cancel my third trip to one of my favorite countries due to cancer. But there is hope…

*Switzerland. Woo-hoo! I found this really cool rail trip online and put a down payment on it for June. Let’s roll!

* Return to England. Did you ever go somewhere and not do something while there, then it sticks in your craw for, like, twenty years? Me too! Here’s the thorn in my side: In 2002 I went to London, Liverpool, and Canterbury. And yes, the journey to Liverpool was for the obvious reasons: Fangirling before the word was even part of the English vernacular. I did everything I wanted to do with regard to my beloved Beatles…except one thing: I didn’t go to the cemetery where Eleanor Rigby is buried. Can such a thing bother you for twenty years? Yes, it can. And it has. So that will be taken care of, put to rest once and for all. And just for kicks I added four days in Portugal to the end of the trip to see how much more it would cost. Turned out to be so insignificant that I’ll do it. This will all be my retirement present to myself. I intended it to be Antarctica, but this will more than suffice.

More…

*National Park Hiking. I started working on the goal to hike them all a decade or more ago, after I had already visited many of them. The 2022 count is thirty-eight down, twenty-five to go. Many of the locations I have left are remote and tough to get to, but I’m not giving up. Every summer I hike more. In fact, I knocked off a load this past summer.

*Climb The Edge in New York City. Have you heard about this? Another excuse to go to my precious Big Apple.

*Concerts. Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, Elton John, Harry Styles, and Ed Sheeran.

*Buy My Own Little Piece of the World in a 55+ Community. I came of age not so long ago. Working on it.

*Buy and Road Trip in a Small RV. Not working on this one yet, but once other things are settled I will.

*Last but not least, I want to spend as much time as possible with my beautiful niece in South Carolina and my amazing sister Jeanne nearby.

Recent Progress

I knocked off five national parks this summer, and also saw Sir Paul McCartney and Elton John in concert. Chipping away.

Please enjoy photos from some of my recent Bucket List events!

What’s on your list?

Fangirling!

Hey, is fangirling a word? Well, if it isn’t, it is now!

I’m not normally a gushy, shivering mess when it comes to celebrities. But on my current road trip (I’m starting this post from Cleveland, Ohio, almost at the end of my drive home,) the past two days have been spent paying homage to some of my all-time favorites, namely James Dean and The Beatles!

When you live with a chronic disease like I do, you always have to wonder if you’ll get another chance to do what you love. Then again, life isn’t guaranteed for anyone, so we all might as well be doing what we want when we can! Which is how I ended up in Fairmount, Indiana, again after a twenty-eight year hiatus, and at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the precise time that the “Get Back to Let It Be” exhibit is running…

For whatever crazy reason, on this year’s trip I seem to be revisiting places that my beautiful mom and I first saw in 1994, on our very first cross country road trip, which spanned 9,400 miles, seven weeks, and twenty-four states. You know, that trip that is supposed to be “once in a lifetime” but turns into a yearly occurrence? (Smile.) That was the first time I was in Fairmount, Indiana. James Dean was actually born in the small city of Marion, Indiana, a few miles north, but spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Fairmount. When we first arrived in town I was, quite frankly, obsessed with Jimmy, even though he died in his Porsche Spyder eleven full years before I was born! I may have calmed down and grown up a little since then, but I’m still a big fan.

Much of the same can be said for my “thing” for The Beatles; I totally missed the Ed Sullivan experience by nearly three years, and when my dearly departed sister Marie saw them at Suffolk Downs racetrack on August 18, 1966, I was a few months from departing the womb. But I crave my Beatles lore almost as much as I do their music; seriously, what could be more interesting than being a Beatle?! From what I can recall, my first real brush with my four cherished boys was when I asked Marie to buy me Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for one of my birthdays in my teen years. And yes, I still have it! Side note: I’ve been to Liverpool (2002) and am hoping to go back later this year, have walked the “zebra crossing” and written on the wall in front of Abbey Road Studios in London twice, have gone to the Imagine memorial in Central Park, New York City, several times. Just recently I saw Sir Paul in concert at Fenway Park in Boston. Another one off the Bucket List, and another piece of the homage completed!

Getting to Fairmount again meant adding an extra hundred miles of driving to my day, so I had my priorities set. The town is so small that it isn’t such a hard thing to drive the whole length of it, which I had to do anyway, as the items on my list were, naturally, on opposite ends. I would have liked to spend time in the James Dean Gallery and the Fairmount Historical Society (filled, of course, with more Dean memorabilia!) like I did in ’94, but what was most important to me is probably what most super fans would want to see: the grave and his boyhood home, which are very close together. I remember Park Cemetery being quite small the first time I was there, and the grave being very easy to find. Now, the place is huge and signs have to point the way or else no one would ever find it. Dean’s boyhood home has also grown considerably in the past twenty-eight years; his cousin Marcus Winslow, who was just a boy when Jimmy was making his way in Hollywood, now runs a full-fledged farm, and it is a beautiful landscape of rolling green fields and white picket fences. Marcus was out on the riding lawn mower the day I was around, and I’m happy to say that he waved to me. My brush with greatness was complete!

Interestingly, “Get Back to Let It Be” was only a small part of director Peter Jackson’s extensive documentary of the Fab Four and was skillfully inserted into the Level O exhibits of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough time to see the best of the hall, but because of the location of the exhibit I was able to take in most of the rest of the floor on the way to The Beatles. “Get Back to Let It Be” consisted of long-shelved excerpts of the tapes made of the recording sessions for the Let It Be album, including the famous “concert on the roof,” as well as instruments used, and other memorabilia. Because it was compact, it wasn’t overwhelming to see the entire thing, and to see it well. I was very satisfied with the entire floor!

Pilgrimages have always been included in my travels. Part of the fun is finding what is sometimes a needled in a haystack. Yeah, I think it’s about time to book that return trip to Liverpool!

About Traveling

Hey, this will be my last post for a few weeks. Vacation time is nearly here, and I’m heading back out on the road again. Which makes this the perfect time to write about one of my favorite subjects, for the first time in a while: Traveling!

I always find it so weird when people make it sound like there is some “right” way to travel. That you, as the subject, have to travel in some certain way to be a “traveler” and not a “tourist.” That there is some time frame that you have to spend in a place to make it worth your while and to satisfy others that you successfully “saw” something or somewhere. That one person’s way of traveling is superior to another person’s way of traveling. Last thing I knew, travel was supposed to be fun, like an ice cream sundae, with a learning experience on top, like a shiny red cherry, if you so choose to have one. Then again, maybe a trip is simply an escape from the rat race.

Social media is full of “influencers” who will have you believe that their way of traveling is not only better than yours, but that it’s easy and they’ll show you how to be like them, for a price. You can trot the globe while taking odd jobs like bartending and teaching English as a Second Language. Thanks, I got over working in bars when I was twenty-five, and I teach people’s kids every day and love sending them home at 2:15pm, no questions asked. I like my good paying job with paid vacations. I’d pay to see pictures of those “influencers” doing one of their real jobs in between the glossy shots from the pristine mountain top in New Zealand and the beach in Mexico. I want to see the “influencer” mixing a White Russian and looking picture perfect. Really.

Thank goodness for the unfollow button! I recently had to use it on one of the better known globe trotters that I had been following for a couple of years, because she was being pretty insulting to someone else’s way of life. What the heck happened to live and let live?

The other thought that I don’t agree with is that in order to travel in a worthwhile way you have to go to a foreign country. Make no mistake, I love exploring places outside the United States. I’ve done more than my fair share. But in a pinch, and let’s face it, we’ve been in quite a pinch since March of 2020, I’d take a road trip to the American West above all other traveling. I’ve ticked off forty plus countries thus far and have every intention of ticking off more in my own fashion once I deem it safe for me, but give me that road trip every time. It should come as no surprise that I’m heading to the American West this next trip too! I can’t WAIT!!

Here’s a secret about me that makes me different than the garden variety social media travel giant: I love coming home and I love being home, too. The pandemic gave me an excuse to stick close to home and explore my own backyard more. I always said that “someday” I’d do that more and, well, I didn’t expect cancer and COVID19 to give me the opportunity, but I’ve had a heck of a good time! I’ve always scoured New England in between bigger trips, but not like I have in the past two years. In my favorite movie of all time, Dorothy Gale went to great lengths to find out that her heart was in her own backyard. My heart is still and always will be in the American West, but New England is pretty cool too.

Before my cancer diagnosis I spent the better part of twenty years earning my keep as a special education teacher and traveling on school vacations. Maybe taking an extra day or two on either side to make my time away longer, or even escaping on a long weekend. Now that I haven’t done it for a couple of years I realize that it was exactly the way I wanted to travel. Make my money, pay for a trip, enjoy where I was without having to worry about work, and come home to earn money for more fun. After my diagnosis and through the COVID19 storm I continued my exploration as best as I could. Slowly, I’m getting my travel life back on track, though I’ve decided I want to do things and see places that I didn’t take the time to do and see before. Cruises and islands are of high interest, while twenty hour flights to the other side of the world are not really a priority. Oh, and more road trips, of course! Always more road trips!

In short, the Bucket List is officially made. It was time.

And so, I continue to explore as I see fit, and I am unapologetic.

Travel and let travel.