As you know, I’m a travel junkie, to the point where people just shake their heads when I bring it up. As I say this, I’m looking out the window at my 2001 Toyota Corolla with the dent in the driver’s side fender that I never quite got fixed. Yeah, I could get that dent fixed for $600, but that’s more than I paid last summer for my plane ticket to Greece.

Would I rather have an intact vehicle? And no longer suffer the humiliation of owning a car that is not only ancient but also looks like a beater? Or a picture of myself on top of the Acropolis? I’ll take the Acropolis, thank you very much.  I’ve been a newspaper reporter for 35 years. I know all about humiliation.

Knock knock knock. “Excuse me, ma’am. Can I talk to you about …” Door slams in my face. “OK, I guess not.”

I’ve been obsessed since I was a girl. For my high school graduation, my parents gave me the largest suitcase Samsonite ever made. I still remember it was called the “World Traveler.” The problem wasn’t that it was teal green — I could live with that — but that it weighed more than Morro Rock before you even put anything inside it. No one was putting wheels on suitcases back then, when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

I took it on my first trip to England, and discovered the nightmare of hauling Morro Rock up and down the stairs in the London Underground trying desperately to get to my hotel before my arms were permanently wrenched out of their sockets. Yeah, World Traveler was a misnomer, because that luggage never made it past the United Kingdom. I gave it away as soon as I got home. It did seem indestructible, though, so maybe one of you still has it. I replaced it with a little wheeled job and it works great.

When I adopted my kids at ages 3 and 5, I figured my traveling days were over. Who wants to haul little kids around the globe? Well, apparently I did, because couldn’t get over my addiction. I just realized I had to bring them along.

Then, when I got cancer, I also figured I wouldn’t be traveling again. Well, guess what? That’s right. I’m still a trip maniac, only now I just do it gimpy style. I took the disabled elevator to the top of the Acropolis in Greece. Guess what? It was great. And I have an even more urgent imperative, which is to finish my bucket list before I’m finished.

One of my bucket list items has been to take the Eurostar train from London to Paris through the Chunnel, which as you know is a tunnel that goes under the English Channel. And I have a chance to do that in May, but I decided against it. No, not because it’s scary to board a train that travels for hours under the sea. I’m not the Little Mermaid after all. But, really, it’s because I don’t like Paris. I got yelled at by a waiter the last time I was there, and insulted by a guy at the information booth. So, yeah, I was done.

Meanwhile, I am going to London in early May on a trip that was sadly postponed from two years ago. I’m taking my niece for her 18th birthday and high school graduation, because we both love author Jane Austen and she wants to see Bath, where Austen lived and wrote from 1801 to 1806. We’re also bringing her older brother along, (my niece’s brother, not Jane Austen’s) so she’ll still have comical entertainment when I have to rest, which is often.

On the earlier planned trip, I secretly purchased tickets to take them on a one-day trip to Paris via the Chunnel. The tickets were only 100 British pounds, which was a steal. I didn’t tell the kids, I was just planning to wake them up at 3 a.m. and tell them to get dressed because we had something to do that day. And then take them to the Eurostar terminal. After the trip was canceled by that stupid pandemic —whatever it’s called — I told the kids about the trip I’d secretly planned.

So, when we rescheduled for this May, they asked if we could still go to Paris. I was able to find cheap earlybird fares, so I sat down and pondered. This of course required snacks. I can’t ponder without snacks. Luckily, I had brie. So, after I made the snacks and sat down to think, I realized that I really didn’t want to go. Here we had a ready-made opportunity to check something that’s been on my bucket list forever, but I just didn’t want to go to Paris.

I have to take a nap every afternoon, due to that pesky cancer thing. And, guess what? I get really tired with too much walking. Pretty sure during 15 hours in Paris, there would be a lot of shoe leather involved. So, I decided to just buy them tickets, make sure they’re dressed and out the door to the train station, then I’ll turn over and go back to sleep.

One bucket list item scratched off. But that’s OK. I plan to knock off two more this year. Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Yes, I figured out how to do it the gimpy way. Hopefully my boss will let me go. I’m slightly worried that if I finish off my bucket list, the Grim Reaper might notice.

Keep reading. I’ll tell you all about it.

Related links

Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: I’m gimpy but I’m getting ready to travel
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: So here’s what happened in the Galapagos
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: Yes, I went to Alaska with a bad case of chemo brain
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: I may have cancer, but you’re not getting rid of me
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/12/01/frumpy-middle-aged-mom-packing-for-a-trip-take-this-one-tip-from-me

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