Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
Airline job means lifetime of travel Page 6
Travel & Adventure December Issue
December 15 & 16, 2016
Retirement allows time for enhanced travels in the U.S. and abroad BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Before she r etired, Edie Ernst spent her v acations exploring Ci vil W ar ba ttlefields. “I w ent to Antietam, Gettysburg, V icksburg, Kennesaw Mountain and many other sites ,” she said. “I have a special affinity f or the Angle a t Gettysburg w here the 1st Minnesota ca ptured the colors of the 28th V irginia Infantry. I plan on being cr emated and ha ving my ashes spread there.” She also made a trip to Kenya prior to retirement, and r ecalls the malaria pills, mosquito netting, and the scr eeching sound of the h yrax, also kno wn as a r ock r abbit or dassie, a mammal resembling a lar ge guinea pig. The Minnesota Zoo sponsored the trip. “They sent a pack et of inf ormation, including details a bout what to pack,” Ernst said. After she r etired fr om
a 30-y ear car eer with the city of Golden V alley in J anuary 2015, Ernst’ s travel schedule began to fill up. “I w anted to see places,” said Ernst, w ho grew up in St. Louis P ark and now lives in Minnetonka. “I’ve tr aveled a lot in Minnesota, too,” she said. She recalls family vacations when she was growing up, which usually consisted of going Up North to a resort for a week. “My parent used to do Elder Hostels , b ut they never left the country ,” Ernst said. In A ugust 2015, Ernst toured P oland and Ger many with a gr oup of 20 people, and that’s become her fa vorite trip , e ven though the countries were Edie Ernst is pictured at the Snaefellsnes Peninsula in Iceland. (Submitted photo) experiencing a record heat wave and temper atures “I’m J ewish and tha t r e- trip, and took another terfalls, landsca pes and exceeded 100 degr ees. ally struck me.” 10-day tour to gether, this lava rock,” she said. “W e “That trip affected me the On that trip, she met a time to Iceland. “On this soaked in a geother mal most,” she said. woman fr om R ochester, trip, w e had to b uy ha ts spa one da y. You sho wer “We visited concentr a- N.Y. “We really hit it off,” and gloves,” she said. first and put on a suit tion camps on a W orld Ernst said. The two texted “Iceland is a bsolutely before getting into geoWar II trip ,” she said. back and f orth after the gorgeous, including w a- thermal water mixed with
salt.” In Ma y 2016, the tw o were in a gr oup of 42 people w ho w ent to Israel, w here Ernst f ound that the tour w as gear ed more to ward Christian sites. “I pack ed all the wrong clothing f or Isr ael,” she said. “W e visited a lot of chur ches w here they don’t allow shorts or bare shoulders . I had to buy a couple of sha wls. If you are wearing shorts, you have to leave the tour and get an apron to cover them. W e w ere w arned about that ahead of time. I want to go back and go through the Jewish sites.” She’s learned along the way to sign up for optional e xcursions of fered on her tours. “I kno w I pr obably won’t be going back to those places a gain, and I want to experience it all,” she said. “I’ ve taken tons of pictures.” ERNST - TO PAGE 3