Travels
When I was a second year teacher at Bear Lake High School, I received a card in my mailbox which I might have thrown out as junk mail, but instead I read it. It asked one simple question: "Do you like to travel?" At the time travel was about as far away from my thoughts as dancing ballet in Lincoln Center! I was the sole supporter for my family of four. We were barely keeping it together and sometimes not even that. We drove an old car which required constant propping up. The kids were working jobs to do what they could, and we squeaked by somehow. Nevertheless, I checked "YES", sent it back, and before long a heavily English-accented voice greeted me on my phone one night. Julian was from Passports Travel. We chatted, and I agreed to let him send me some materials. About that time I casually asked a student, David Hammond, where he'd like to travel one night when we were cleaning up after a performance of a Christmas pageant. He said, "London and maybe Paris."
That was the beginning. We conjured up a group of 50 interested travelers! We baked, sold jerky, tie-dyed shirts to sell, made homemade bread and jams, sold tickets to a 60's dance, and delivered breakfasts in bed on Mother's Day! Individually the kids raised calves and pigs to sell, worked part time jobs, and solicited grandparents. I petitioned the school to let me teach a semester prep class for the trip. We built sugar cube castles, did French cooking in my classroom, studied the royal families of English history, learned some rudimentary French, and generally prepared and psyched ourselves!
Because of the gusto with which the trip took roots, six of us were able to travel at no cost. I invited Taggart along as well as some friends--one brought his son, and one her husband. We were the Tally Ho Club, and to say that our week each in London and Paris was SMASHING is to utter the world's greatest understatement. We saw multiple multiple plays in the West End, breathed castle air, saw the great art work of civilization, sampled foods, laughed ourselves sick, and discovered the world is a wonderful friendly place!
That was just the beginning. The next year another small group formed. The next year a larger group materialized. We visited England, France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy! Then I met Jerry Hadd on-line and marked off Japan (to see Shelly. I used bonus credits I'd earned from Passports!) and China in one trip! Since then I have been privileged to travel abroad multiple times. Our experience in China as teachers expanded that horizon even broader.
(on a Rhine River cruise)
In addition I have taken three different groups of students with my friend Bruce to the East Coast on American history tours. All of these experiences have been stretching experiences and left me not only a different teacher but thirsting for MORE! To think that an impoverished English teacher could pull it off and even take her own kids should inspire EVERYONE!!!
My pictures of all of this combined travel are too extensive for this book. I fully intend to take a delightful year, compile them all, and write a narrative as best I can. Travel has been the icing on the cake of my story! (And oh, yes, I met Julian not once, not twice, but three times in a Paris restaurant.)(sewing a bag out of a pig feed sack in Siem Reap, Cambodia)
(atop an elephant in Cambodia)
(modeling berets, T-shirts, and boxers from afar. Tag is still a little jet-lagged.)
(above Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich, Germany,
with some student friends from Chicago in our group. We buried a
time capsule up there!)
(Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, London--Lynne and I are real!)
(I admit to an unhealthy addiction to Orangina--Paris)
(London)
(Parisian street market--me in stripes holding the world's
largest artichoke! Incidentally, that is perfect contentment
on my face...)
(having a go at the alphenhorn-- Luzerne, Switzerland)
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