Not With a Bang or a Whimper 2-24-14

Our flight back to the US was good for the first leg (business/first) and crowded for the last leg (regional jet).
We flew from Paris to Toronto on the first leg in Business/First on a new Boeing 787 and it was pretty lush. I burned the last of my frequent flyer miles on United for the tickets, since I'm retired the likelihood of me flying enough miles or legs to get any status is non-existent.  So the biggest danger was having them expire and I wasn't going to let that happen.

We're in a bit of jet lag now so the realization of finishing our adventure hasn't fully registered yet. We certainly had time to think about it at 1:30 this morning as we were just laying there awake, it being 9:30 am Paris time.

What should one think when a dream 30+ years in the making has been fulfilled?  Is there a bit of a letdown?  Absolutely NOT, that would diminish the joy of having spent it living the dream.  People are asking, What are you doing next?  In some ways it's like being asked "would you like another dessert?", after you've just had the best one you've ever eaten.  We'll need time to digest it.  It was two years after our 3 month trip to Madrid before we went to Paris.  Many ideas, mental pictures, and feelings have to be incorporated.

Have we lost the interest in travel?  Again absolutely not, but as we age we have to consider what will give the most satisfaction. The cliche, it's not the destination, it's the journey comes into play.

To you, our friends and interested(maybe) readers I would say this,  DON'T WAIT.  It can be expensive, but the memories are priceless and a great source of comfort later on. I was troubled by the shootings in Paris, it was frightening to be in unfamiliar territory when bad things were happening. But there is less chance of being killed/injured in a terrorist attack than in a car accident.
Go out, enjoy, see the world while you can, one of the biggest motivators for writing this blog was to share it with our friends who could no longer join us in person.  I wanted to share it with them as a token of my love and respect for them. It's sort of like fragrances on the wind, a whiff of which will open your mind's eye to many of your own past experiences.  And with luck to future ones.

The world is waiting, you have to provide the animation.