Travels with George
A talk by Susan Hanes, first given before The Fortnightly of Chicago on December 18, 2014 and subsequently updated.
Travels with George Seeing the Forest and the Trees
Susan R. Hanes 2019
Introduction at the Fortnightly Susan Hanes-Leonard was born in Washington, D.C. and before she was two years old, her father, a career foreign service officer, was assigned to Greece. That’s where she started her life of travel. Susan attended Emory University in Atlanta and the University of Florida, where she earned a Master’s of Education in Library Science. Apparently not having had her fill of travel, she married a career Naval officer and for the next 20 years moved around the world with her husband and their two sons. She later earned a Master’s of Library and Information Science from Dominican University in River Forest. As a widow, Susan continued her diverse career in academic, public, and special libraries. She married George Leonard in 2001, and after she retired from the library profession, she was able to join him in seeing even more of the world. They’re both possessed of lively and dogged curiosity, a vital attribute for travelers, plentiful evidence of which you’ll see and hear today. Susan’s love of travel is documented in the meticulous photojournals she has kept over the years. Most recently, she brought together more than 30 years of photos featuring the shape of the heart. Photographs taken in 35 countries and nearly 2 dozen American states resulted in Hearts: Timeless, Universal, Transcendent, published in 2013. She is also the author of Wilkie Collins’s American Tour, published by Pickering and Chatto in London in 2008. She spoke at the Fortnightly about her relationship with that Victorian writer in June of 2012. You’ll find a bookmark on your chairs today with information that will lead you to susanhaneshearts.com, where you can see Susan’s books and a whole raft of her travel photojournals. Lest you think Susan does nothing but travel and take pictures, I hasten to mention that she currently serves in the leadership of two local organizations, organizations whose missions reflect her lifelong passions: she’s secretary of International Women Associates and president of the Caxton Club. I, too, am a Caxton Club member. It’s a club of book collectors—also book artists, publishers, librarians, and those of us who just plain love books. It was named for William Caxton, the printer of the first book printed in the English language in England, in 1477. The Caxton Club was founded in 1895 as a men’s club: women were first admitted in 1976. Susan is the third woman to preside over the club. When Susan and I met in late August to preview her talk, the pictures she showed me and the anecdotes she told made me eager to share my own travel stories. I hope they inspire you to lively table conversations today!
—Margaret McCamant Fortnightly Tea Committee
You all know the old adage about not seeing the forest for the trees. Well, I would like to share with you how I learned to make the most of seeing the world with my husband, George. George is a forest kind of guy; I am more of a trees gal.
Before I met George, I considered myself a savvy traveler. The daughter of an ambassador to four countries and the wife of a career Naval officer, I had my share of living abroad—in Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, South Africa, Guam, and Germany— and traveling frequently from those places.
I was a travel sophisticate; from an early age, I was accustomed to making my way in unfamiliar surroundings. But when I met and eventually married George, I realized that I had met my match.
George was first introduced to me as someone who “enjoyed travel.� I soon discovered that this was a gross understatement. George is a travel master. He has thousands of books, hundreds of files and bookmarked web pages, and an impressive knowledge of the political world and of the history of art. He also has an insatiable appetite for finding and independently exploring the more obscure corners of our own country and of the world. George avoids tours. I believe the last one he went on was in 1969 when he visited China’s Longmen Grottoes with a group of Chinese-speaking art historians. No, George prefers to have full control of the itinerary and the schedule. With his storehouse of information, he knows exactly where to go and what to see, and he works tirelessly to find interesting and unusual places to stay. I will add that he does not waste a moment, and considers it a point of personal pride that he does not miss an important sight nor waste a moment getting there.
I will give you an example. This is an excerpt from my journal when we were traveling in Northern Spain in 2003: We took the long way towards Tremp, passing though the most dramatic scenery of our trip: deep gorges and spectacular passes that created some real white-knuckled driving. George kept saying, “Tell me what you see; I’ve got to keep my eyes on the road.” Yes, you do, I thought, and kept the descriptions coming. Eventually we reached the cutoff for Vall de Boi, renowned for its cluster of early Romanesque churches, the finest in the Pyrenees. After savoring the churches in their mountain settings, we walked over to the nearby café where we ordered cool drinks as we sat in the shade of a drooping arbor. I enjoyed watching the proprietor’s little boy happily digging in the garden. I could have stayed there all afternoon, but suddenly my guide hopped to his feet, reminding me that we had places to visit before the day was over.
After dragging me away from this idyllic setting, he drove for three hours along a series of narrow mountain roads until we came to the turnoff for the Monastery of San Juan de la Pena, arriving twenty minutes before closing. We parked quickly and clambered up to the cloisters, cornered between the precipice and the cliff face, which provided a kind of roof. The capitals were extraordinary; they had influenced sculpture throughout the region for centuries. Later that night, as we collapsed in our room, George posed the question, “Which site would you have chosen not to have seen?” And to be honest, I had no answer. They were remarkable, and we had seen them both.
As I said, George has the forest viewpoint. Every trip that he plans has a theme, usually based on a time in history with an emphasis on art or architecture.
In Northern Spain and France, we concentrated on Romanesque art.
In the Balkans, our focus was the Byzantine.
We drove the length of the Mississippi River with the area’s wealth of music as our theme. We witnessed mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, and followed the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky.
Mountain Top Removal in West Virginia
We explored the western United States, following Lewis and Clark,
got our kicks along Route 66,
and probed the issues of immigration along the Mexican border.
The Mayans were our focus in Central America, and we traced Arab influences from Morocco through Andalusian Spain.
We visited monasteries in the Caucasus and mosques in Central Asia.
“Priories, Parishes, & Pubs” was our theme in England and Wales.
We followed the Silk Road in Western China,
and in Russia, we drove the Golden Ring.
I have learned that there is little I can suggest during the planning stage that George has not already considered. He has read the best books and articles on a location, he has visited it before, or he just seems to innately know what not to miss. I eventually decided to give up and concentrate on making our trips worthy of the time that he puts into creating our imaginative itineraries. I determined that my job was to look—really look—for the trees in George’s forest. In the nearly 20 years that we have been together, I have developed ways to contribute to our unique way of travel. Granted, I am still running to catch up with him, but I have learned to make the most of each moment. Although I wasn’t able to dawdle at that café at the Vall de Boi, George would have to agree that I have figured out ways to enrich our experiences that enable us to savor our travels long after we are safely home. The following are six lessons I have learned as I wander in George’s forests.
Lesson 1: Use a magnifying glass. Well, maybe not literally, but then again, that might not be a bad idea. Sometimes, the macro setting on my camera serves just as well. Wherever we go, I try to remain acutely aware of my surroundings. I am always checking out the small stuff, hunting for details. For example, when we were stumbling over the rocks at the Pinara Tombs in Turkey, I photographed a delicate thistle pushing up between the stones. Seeing it later takes me back to that spot more clearly than a wide angle shot does.
When we were visiting the House of the Virgin Mary near Ephesus, we were overwhelmed by clouds of prayers and petitions pinned to the surrounding walls. But the impression was far more evocative when I moved in close and picked out one particular message from the mass.
The same is true indoors. We visited the home of 20th century Russian poet Anna Akhmatova in St. Petersburg, a modest apartment where she lived until her death in 1966. Although this picture of her study shows the desk where she wrote,
a close-up of the light switch conveys a real sense of the simplicity of her surroundings.
A Hillbilly Bubble Bath packet for sale said more about the hotdog stand where we ate lunch near Lesage, West Virginia than a photo of the whole place. The instructions are to cook the bag of beans and eat it one hour before bathing.
This is a pipe opening that I noticed in the sidewalk in the Old Market District of Omaha. Leaning closer, I found a perfect little still life: a purple flower, bits of stone, metal, and glass, and especially suggestive, a singed scrap of paper that revealed the word “When.�
Similarly, I try not to pass up a bulletin board. Often, a simple café or diner will have a notice board hung up on a back wall. Bulletin boards are a window into insider information. I found this exchange posted at a café on Vancouver Island, British Columbia: “There has been a white cat after my chickens for two days. We have only shot at it to scare it away. Don’t push your cat’s luck.” Under that, someone had thought to add an orange Post-it that said, “If it has grey spots, it is a stray cat.” What a glimpse into local life!
On the crowded bulletin board outside the Starlight Theater in Terlingua, Texas, two signs hung together, each posing important questions. The top one reads, “What is the meaning of life? What is our role in our present world? How do we attain constant, serious merriment?” The lower one asks perhaps an equally critical question, “In need of an electrician?”
In Sitka, Alaska, as we walked past Eddie’s Old Time Saloon, we noticed that a sign was posted next to one for $2 beers, welcoming the Alaska Airlines Strategic Planning Group. I will add that this notice has not diminished my confidence in Alaska Airlines.
Road signs are fun too. In Alaska, a “No Target Shooting” sign was riddled with bullet holes. In Jodhpur, India, we were puzzled by signs advertising “Child Beer” until we realized they were actually advertising … “Chilled Beer.” In Mumbai, we were instructed to “Speed Safely.” (We were going too fast for me to get a photo of that one.)
Here are a few other signs that were worth staying alert for: “No Room for Domestic Violence … Except on Sunday” (Marion, Indiana); “People are Strange” (Istanbul)
We encountered a whole raft of cautionary signs during our six weeks in China, although their meanings were often elusive.
Back home, we weren’t too clear what this was all about either.
We found good deals on tummy tucks and breast implants on the Mexican border, and in Hong Kong, I discovered this young man, proudly displaying his Chicago Steelers tee shirt.
When we go to a restaurant, I make a point to visit the washroom to see what I can find there. Even the wording on the doors tells you something about the place. “Roosters” and “Chicks” or “Gents” and “Dames” or “Pointers” and “Setters” are some that I’ve found. Sometimes the signs can be a little confusing, especially after a couple of beers—like this one, in a bar in the rugged Svaneti region of the Republic of Georgia.
I like to check out the graffiti on the walls too. “Your boyfriend is a bad kisser” or a scrawled “New Orleans Rocks” adds a dose of atmosphere. When we attended a book conference at Oberlin College, I noticed a length of messages in a stall in the Ladies’ Room at the Science Center. At the bottom of the thread, in several different hands, someone had added, “I have been reading this since it started but never written anything and I’m graduating now. So thanks for providing me such a thought provoking diversion.” And you never know when you might find a message that provides a spiritual lift.
Noticing the fliers and posters taped in storefront windows has provided information that has enhanced many a visit. By taking advantage of such postings, we were able, for $15, to join a social evening sponsored by the Seward, Alaska Arts Council for beer, salmon burgers, entertainment, and a souvenir mug. I even won a pair of silver earrings made in Moose Pass in the silent auction.
“Hobo Jim� Varsos
We found out about Stoopid Tourist Night from a banner strung over an Alaskan bar. That evening, we listened to funny but good-natured stories, and watched a tourist costume contest put on by college students who had worked the summer for Alaska’s tourism industry. We got to meet Alaska’s Own Balladeer, “Hobo Jim” Varsos and hear him sing “I Am Alaska”—one of the highlights of our trip. He played “Country Roads” for a group from the Czech Republic; they knew all the words in Czech.
I also hunt for yard sales. As we were exploring the coal counties of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, I spotted a hand-drawn sign for a sale in Whitesburg, West Virginia. Persuading George to stop, I walked up and asked if I could take a look. As I examined the glass bowls and bric-a-brac, I struck up a conversation with a tanned guy with long grey hair, wearing a food co-op tee shirt. “What do you think of all this mountaintop removal mining business?” I asked. “Mountains of greed lead to rivers of sorrow,” he answered. A line certainly worth the cost of a jelly jar.
Lesson 2: Don’t forget your other senses.
First, Listen. Whether the clamor and clatter of a street market in Chichicastenango, the strain of a call to prayer in Istanbul,
the chanting of women at a Jain Temple in Mumbai, or the creaks and groans of calving glacial ice at Kenai Fjords, I savor the sounds of our surroundings as well as the sights.
In Tikal, Guatemala, we got up at 3:00 AM for an early morning trek though the rainforest to see the sunrise from Temple IV— 70 meters high. Once we had climbed the wooden steps to the top of the temple, we were instructed by the guide to be silent and listen to the sounds of the jungle waking up. As we gazed out over the Grand Plaza, we watched the sky lighten and the sun come up. We heard howler monkeys calling back and forth to each other with their raspy voices, and the mystical song of toucans echoing below.
But the sounds that dominated our vigil were those of Homo Sapiens: talking, whispering, laughing, sneezing, coughing; the blowing of noses, the popping of soda cans, a cacophony of digital camera beeps, and as a crescendo, the loud ringing of a mobile phone.
When we were aboard the Alaska Ferry heading out along the Aleutian Chain, a group of Aleut mothers with small children joined us when we docked at Cold Bay. They organized themselves in booths in the area where we were sitting. Their conversation was basically “mom-talk”; I overheard one mother charmingly describe her baby’s hair as “soft as an otter pelt.”
Next, Smell. I like to take time to smell the roses too, even though our travels may not always take us to rose gardens. We stopped to inhale the aroma of street food cooking in vats of hot oil in Guatemala; the scent of incense burning in a Hindu temple;
the pungency of a Turkish spice bazaar; and even the odor of animals on display at an open market in Chiapas, Mexico.
Try a Taste. I am not as good at this as perhaps I might be. George thinks I am much too fussy about trying street food and local delicacies like ant larvae, but then he has a stronger constitution than I do. I will admit that I liked the crunchy chapulines in Mexico until I found out that they were grasshoppers.
George shares the view of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who once asked, “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed Pope-mobiles … eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want to try it all.”
Finally, Feel. When we visit a place, I try to open myself up to it and allow the atmosphere to engulf me. This is a piece I wrote from Ketchikan, Alaska, as we sat in a cafĂŠ and watched the last cruise ships depart for the season.
As the silent behemoth creeps slowly from the harbor, I can almost hear the sound of the collective deep breath of fresh Alaskan air. Silently, silently, the presence that has filled the skyline departs, its only sign of life, the intermittent flashes from numberless point-and-shoot cameras aimed from staterooms that will capture only a reflection of their occupants. Shops that have opened early to accommodate the crowds of couples wearing parkas and Last Frontier ball caps close their doors; the owners return to their lives, their families. The bright orange Alaska Shirt Company bags are stashed on board, along with the shoppers who have learned all they have time to know about Sitka or Juneau or Ketchikan. As I sit in the coffee shop window, the town seems to contract and regain its own character, its self-reliance. It seems to be acknowledging that the departure of those floating towers of commerce means that the long, cold winter lies ahead, before the stores are restocked with Hannah Moosetana tee shirts and ivory whales made in China, and spring returns, bringing again those invading masses of humanity.
Lesson 3: Get around like a local. In order to really get a sense of a place, we try to get around the way the locals do, be it the elegant Metro in Tashkent, the Underground in London, or the Star Ferry in Hong Kong. We attended the Kumbh Mela festival on the shore of the Ganges in Haridwar, India, the largest peaceful gathering of humanity in the world. The only way to negotiate those crowds was by bicycle rickshaw. A “tuc-tuc,� or motorized rickshaw, was an efficient way to see the sights from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Copan in Honduras.
On Malta, we were charmed by the vintage British busses that wheezed and rumbled around the island. George suggested we should try the unreserved class on the train in India, but I have not worked myself up to that just yet. The platform was daunting enough.
This is a journal entry that I wrote in Delhi: Thoughts from a bicycle rickshaw—The slim young man in front of us stands on the pedals to heft our weight across the muddy, rutted road. Struggling to keep our balance on the narrow, slanted seat, we have a surprisingly intimate view of the crowd of humanity lining the street and contesting space within it, in all methods of transport. There seems to be some sort of order in the chaos spread before us. The slower handcarts yield to almost everyone else; one of them gets a burst of strength and gently butts the wheel of our rickshaw; we hardly notice but our driver does. He looks behind and says something; it doesn’t sound sharp or rude; he is just communicating something about the situation in front of us. We pass a jam up in the other direction. Impossible to tell what the problem is, other than the fact that it involves an oxcart, a truck, and a car that sits at a 90-degree angle between them. We edge past, noting that few others take any notice. Along the road, we see great piles of canvas sacks, some scattered, others carefully stacked. Men, mostly in unraveling turbans, lounge over them. Other men sit crosslegged on nearby wooden handcarts. Presumably the bags have been delivered and unloaded; now it’s time for tea and conversation. Vendors crouch along the broken sidewalk; sliced pineapple, luscious pomegranates, betel leaves tantalizingly arranged in soft green stacks, sacks of the accompanying areca nuts conveniently displayed nearby.
I ask a man preparing a display of vegetables if I can take his picture—actually I just motion towards the camera; he shakes his head, “No.� But an old paanwalla, fanning his betel leaves, readily agrees and is pleased when I show him the results. The scene is full of motion, but of rest too. It all seems to flow in a single benign current of humanity; a humanity that accepts its lot and expects no more from life than doing a job, delivering the goods, exchanging a word, and going home, only to do it again tomorrow, as fathers and grandfathers have done for generations.
We like to visit grocery stores or small shops where the local people go. In China, I was particularly fascinated by the products I found on the shelves. I didn’t know what some of the things were, but the interesting packaging and labeling invited a closer look. In Tashkent’s food market, a sausage seller named Mirjam invited me to join her in her booth. My look suggests how relieved I was that she did not insist that I sample whatever it was that she was selling.
Lesson 4. Don’t necessarily avoid all touristy things.
Although George balked at the idea at first, we really got the feel of historic Deadwood, South Dakota by donning Wild West gear and posing for a sepia portrait. Even tacky souvenir photos can add a fun dimension to your memory collection and will ensure that you have at least one picture with everyone in it.
And riding on the London Eye or drifting down the Seine on a bateau mouche are so popular with tourists simply because they are so special.
Lesson 5. To shoot or not to shoot?
George and I both love to take pictures. Some of our happiest travel memories include discovering a temple ruin in Alahan, Turkey and immersing ourselves in Semana Santa in Antigua, Guatemala. We took off in different directions, taking pictures in our own ways.
George likes to concentrate on the big things—the towering Chola temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, for example, while I am drawn to details like the tiny figure of a woman applying kohl to her eyes, tucked in amongst the astonishing sculptures at Khajuraho.
This close up of a woman’s hand in Ohrid, Macedonia captures our wordless exchange as she calculated the cost of a handembroidered blouse.
Having my camera at the ready allowed me to catch these folks enjoying their visit to the Jim Beam distillery in Claremont, Kentucky
‌ and these babushka ladies taking a break from their pilgrimage to the Trinity Monastery in Sergiyev Posad, Russia.
I try to see things from different vantage points. This abandoned grain elevator in the middle of Kansas looks far more lonely from down at track level.
Pictures don’t have to be prizewinners to be effective. These photos that I took in the Bosnian mountains, crossing the Armenian border, and negotiating the hedgerows in Wales each remind us of those difficult drives.
On the other hand, I recall that when I was with a small group in China in the 1980s, one man took absolutely no pictures. He left me wondering if perhaps he went home with far brighter memories than those of us who saw everything through a lens. In today’s world of smartphones, iPads, and Instagram, we are in danger of becoming obsessed with “documenting rather than experiencing.” But for me, the joy of taking pictures still outweighs an unencumbered view. I just try to remember not to substitute the picture for the experience.
Lesson 6. Step out of your comfort zone. In spite of a lifetime of traveling, I am still apprehensive. I conjure up all sorts of perils, from engine trouble to Delhi Belly to being hopelessly lost. But I have learned that it is when you push yourself that you discover the richness of travel. Anthony Bourdain described the ideal traveler as “relentlessly curious and without fear or prejudice.” I am working on being that traveler.
In Jaisalmer, India, a shopkeepers’ wife prepared dinner for us after we tenuously followed her son in pitch darkness down a narrow back alley to their home, wondering just where he was leading us. In Kosovo, we negotiated NATO K-FORCE barricades to visit the extraordinary UNESCO-designated Decani Monastery.
In Alaska, I swallowed my fear of flying to swoop over the glaciers in a Cessna 172. Enduring white knuckles and hairpin curves, we marveled at the extraordinary rock formations in Morocco’s Dades Gorge.
In Turkey, we sailed over Cappadocia’s Fairy Chimneys in a hot-air balloon.
At Turkmenistan’s ancient city of Merv, I managed the steep and slippery climb up to an ancient fort to survey the desert world spread below me.
In Palenque, I tried not not look down as I reached the top of the Templo de la Cruz, the site’s tallest structure, for incredible views of the Templo del Sol, the Templo de las Inscriptiones, and El Palacio.
And we negotiated Class IV rapids, rafting through the Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park.
The following journal entry, written in a bar in Homer, Alaska as we awaited the arrival of the ferry that would carry us out to Kodiak and along the Aleutians pretty much sums up my pre-trip jitters: We are sitting at the end of Homer Spit at the bar at Land’s End, waiting to board the ferry for Kodiak in a few hours. George sits across from me, patiently looking out of the large window by our table. It is a wet and dreary day; I find it hard to differentiate the grey skies from the waters of the bay. I am looking out for any indication of waves. After all, we are heading out into “big waters,” a term that got my attention when we were discussing our decision to take the ferry to Unalaska Island, the end of the Aleutian Chain run. When I am startled that a fishing boat out to the left is rocking wildly, George points out that a speeding motorboat has just passed it. Oh, OK. I am feeling pretty exasperated with myself. There is nothing that I like more than experiencing new things and meeting new people. And yet, here I am, as I always am, facing my usual “anticipatory anxiety.” Looking out at those dark clouds, it doesn’t matter that the weather report (that I have checked every hour or so—for the past three weeks) says that the winds are at 5 MPH. I am still imagining hanging on for dear life in a wild sea—that same sea that stars on TV’s Deadliest Catch. My worries are twofold: my hair being a mess, and sinking—in that order. But once we board the MV Tustumena, fondly known around these parts as the “Trusty Tusty”, I hope that what usually happens, will kick in: I will be in the moment and surrender the thoughts that fill my too-vivid imagination. There is so much I want to learn and experience aboard that 50-year old veteran of “the cradle of storms”: What is the crew like? Who are the other passengers aboard this legendary vessel that has been responsible for saving numerous lives during the half century of its’ own? Who are the people who depend on her for their links with the rest of the world? What is life like for the people who live in the tiny communities on those vulnerable islands that dare to reach into the most demanding seas in the world? I hope that this is a week full—but not too —of excitement. Now, if I could just calm down, I will be ready to attack those 5 MPH winds, and the experiences that come with them.
After we returned from one of our five weeks of independent travel, I wrote in my journal:
“The sheer unpredictability of travel—the delight of one moment, the disquiet of the next— is what I dread in advance but love to recall.”
And now, coming home. George has claimed the planning part of our travels and has created the forest that we will explore. My specialty is post-trip, the part where the “trees” part of our refrain really kicks in. I agree with the feeling that author Kate Douglas Wiggin once expressed, that “There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.”
Since my first trip as an adult, I have kept a journal every day that I am away. I know that I will never be able to reconstruct my thoughts once I am home again. It is hard to remember all that assails the senses, especially when one moves as fast as we do. We have driven as many as 8,000 miles in a single trip, spending virtually every night in a different place. Sometimes it is hard to remember what we did when I sit down at my keyboard at the end of a long day. I have learned to keep a small notebook in my pocket at all times, where I jot down things as we go along: the scenery that we pass, a bit of conversation that I overheard, or my reaction to something that I’ve seen. Then, each night, no matter how tired I am, I spend at least two hours writing. I don’t know if anyone will ever read my words, but I am nonetheless driven to write them.
If words make up half of the trees in my forest, images build the rest. You have seen how I love to take pictures of people and details‌ and how I try to document all that I notice.
I also collect ephemera— tickets, menus and tiny treasures— that I scan once we get back. I sometimes scout eBay for old stamps and cards even before we leave home. We send postcards to ourselves as we go along, to collect postmarks from the places we visit. These all become part of my travel journals.
After George and I have returned from a trip and I am once again back in my little office, I find great satisfaction in putting my writing and pictures and mementos into photo journals that record the stories of the forests that George creates for us. At the end of the road near Newfoundland's northernmost point, I wrote the following entry in my journal:
Cape Onion, Sunday Evening—I am sitting in an Adirondack chair within the white-picket fenced lawn of the Tickle Inn, proclaimed by David, the innkeeper, to be the northernmost residence in Newfoundland. The setting sun illuminates my view of the rocky shore of the Atlantic before me, and these short minutes of Alpenglow bring the ruggedness around me to golden life. I delight in this time in this most solitary of places in this most solitary of locations in this most solitary part of the world. It astonishes me that dramatic scenery like this can be experienced amid the gentlest of breezes, the most temperate of evenings, the most soothing of sounds, as waves grumble against the black stones that line the beach. The sand, too, is black, and its darkness combines with distant storm clouds to offer a stark contrast to breaking waves made brighter by touches of fading sunlight. George and I arrived here early enough to take the coastal path that led us along the shore, through a small pine scented forest, and up a fern-covered hill for views of “the Onion� and breaking waves below. In our busy travels, there are perhaps too few of these quiet times but that makes them all the more treasured.
Following the path behind him, watching him stop to take photos of the vista before us (while I concentrate on the details— miniature flowers, a peculiar rock, a piece of driftwood) makes me feel close to him. Yes, in this remote place, I have this Moment that I will add to the necklace of such Moments we have shared.
I acknowledge that travel is personal and is experienced by each of us in our own way, but in whatever way we choose, travel should broaden and enrich us. In bringing people together towards greater understanding and mutual respect, travel is one of life’s great treasures. On the last day of our six-week, 8,000 mile trip through the Balkans, I ended my journal by writing: George’s emphasis is the art and the culture of these places; mine is to learn from the people themselves. But perhaps what we glean from both these emphases brings us the greatest understanding in the limited time we have. On occasion I have found myself gazing longingly at those small private tours with their guide and driver: how much easier it would be to not struggle with bags up a staircase with no railing in a hotel with no elevator. There is something unique in being on our own to find our way on impossible roads, carry our own bags, be our own tour guides; solve our own problems without the programmed assistance of others. I have had my share of annoyances with George over these weeks as he certainly has had with me, but our adventures together form the tightest of bonds. So although we may not walk arm in arm along shady Parisian boulevards, we have gotten ourselves through flooded and potholed roads in Albania, found our way along dark, broken streets in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, and moved road construction barricades on the outskirts of Munich.
It is through George’s prodigious interest in the world and his urgency to have me experience it with him that I have been able to sit and contemplate bloody history on the Bridge on the Drina in Visegard, Bosnia; examine the Dance of the Dead with flashlights in an old church in Beram, Croatia; and be moved to tears by the Montenegrin guitarist who turned his tiny restaurant in Kotor into a private recital hall for us.
Perhaps just as romantic as holding George’s hand along the street is trotting behind him to keep up with his determined stride to the next place on his list.
It is a challenge to keep him in sight while still looking for the details, but it is those small things among the big ones that allow us to enjoy the forest and the trees.
Following are examples of the more than 90 books that I have made about my Travels with George
© 2019