The List

When we began our 12-month countdown last September, we made a list of the things that had to happen before we could leave. We checked off most of the items one-by-one over the past few months, but when 2011 began, two big ones remained. The first was selling our house. We can’t afford to leave for Europe as unemployed gap year travelers with no income and a mortgage on a vacant house. And we don’t want to be tethered to the worry and hassle of having renters in the place. Getting a call about a burst pipe while “wandering down the Champs-Elysées” would kind of break the mood. Unfortunately, selling the house has yet to happen. The second thing remaining on our must-happen-before-we-leave list is that our daughter who just graduated from nursing school and is currently living with us had to find a job. There was no way we were going to sell the house out from under her and leave the country for a year with her unemployed. Well, the list of must-happens is now down to one because Caroline got a job! She starts at the end of February, plans to move out this spring and so all we have to do before we pack up and leave is sell our millstone of a house! I often imagine our trip as a Christmas tree tightly bound in netting and as each month passes and we check off things on the to-do list, we snip some more plastic to free up more branches. And now the only piece of seriously strained netting holding back our trip’s – I mean, the Christmas tree’s -- full glory is a little transaction called selling the blinking house.

Too Much Adventure

Late last fall, I had a frightening, first-time experience at the end of a long day of hiking in Tucson’s Rincon Mountains. I’m fairly fearless when it comes to exploring alone in the wilderness, but this episode shook me to the soles of my hiking boots. It also knocked some cautionary sense into me and is one of the reasons we’ll do the Tour Du Mont Blanc with an outfitter and not on our own.

After four-and-a-half hours of solo hiking up a nine-mile ridge on an unseasonably chilly, drizzly day, I reached the Tanque Verde Peak. My climb began at 9 that morning, I reached the summit at 1:30 and after a brief rest to eat my sweet and salty bar and savor the view (luckily, the clouds had cleared shortly before I reached the top), I headed back down. Because I could count on gravity propelling me down in less time than it took to go up, I was confident I’d be back to my car with time to spare before the sun set at 6. Given the weather, which scared away most hikers, and the fact that it was a weekday, it was a lonely outing. I’d passed only two other hikers, both on their way down, over the course of the entire ascent. But, the solitude enhanced the experience: a long, strenuous hike with only my thoughts and the sounds of nature for company.

The return trail snaked west, out towards the distant city skyline and beyond it, the Tucson Mountains, thereby allowing me to track the sun’s decline as I made my descent. The morning drizzle had given way to partly sunny skies and the afternoon horizon promised a spectacular sunset. I must have had a lot to occupy my mind that afternoon because before I knew it, I was out of the alpine forest and back down to mesquite trees, cholla cactus and the mighty saguaro. The soles of my feet were just starting to whine and since it was approaching 5 o’clock, I figured I didn’t have much further to go. Any hiker on an out-and-back trail will tell you that it’s comforting on the return trip to recognize familiar rocks, trees, cairns and turns that were noted on the way out. As 6 pm approached and the sun continued to sink, the panic of having seen nothing familiar for the past 30 minutes steadily rose. The sun was almost gone, the temperature was dropping fast and I’d lost the trail.

As someone who often hikes alone, frequently for distances of well over 10 miles, my biggest fear is phantom trails. Those footpaths that beckon, seduce you into following them, lead you on, inspire confidence, speed and sure-footedness, and then drop you once you’ve committed. They simply disappear. I’ve had minor flirtations with such deceptive trails before, but always on terrain with which I’m somewhat familiar and where doubling back is never a problem. This time, however, I succumbed to the lure of the phantom path on a vast, unfamiliar ridge for almost half an hour and when I’d finally realized my error, not only the trail but the sun had also abandoned me. I swallowed the waves of panic rising in my gut and immediately decided that turning around was not an option. Doing so would put me further up the ridge and my chances of finding the true trail were slim. Far off in the distance – perhaps two miles or so -- I could see the red taillights that indicated a road and without more than a moment’s hesitation, I plunged into the brush to bushwhack my way back to civilization.

I could blame losing my way on full moon insanity, but I also have the lunar glow to thank for allowing me to see anything at all. And that included shadows that morphed into every nefarious shape and size my imagination would allow. The desert comes alive at night and thus I envisioned coyotes, javelinas, rattlesnakes and scorpions emerging with every step. I groped my way through whatever was in front of me and trying to maintain my pace, literally crashed through whatever was in my way. Since everything has barbs and needles in the desert, I knew that I would be a bloody wreck when (and yes, I did start to think “if”) I finally emerged on the road. As I steadily progressed, the ground suddenly dropped beneath me and I realized that what appeared from higher up to be a straight shot to the taillights was actually deeply undulating terrain. That meant more ground to cover and more opportunities for cactus to leave their marks. Needless to say, I did survive the hike, I did make it to the road and indeed, I was rescued. My husband Joe and brother Al both happened to call in succession just as I was losing faith that I would ever reach the road (thank you, Verizon, for your awesome reach). Joe kept me going and calmed my panic and Al, ever practical, said, “Mar, just call the police.”

Two hours later, embarrassed and bloodied, I was perched in the back of a squad car, providing my particulars to an officer who looked no more than 18. He’d contacted the Park Ranger who met us at the park entry, opened the gates and drove me the 5 miles to my car. Yes, it took me a few days to completely calm down; yes, I told Joe I would never again do a hike like that alone; and yes, I learned my lesson. The wilderness is wonderful and the rewards of solitude comforting, but there’s a limit to adventure and I had gone too far.

The Tour du Mont Blanc

As we inch closer to our anticipated departure (September 6th, the Tuesday after Labor Day), our gap year slowly starts to come into focus and gradually develops from black and white to color. We’ve started to actually fill in a specific date here and there and confirm some of the details of our trip. I’m still in the throes of my personal tug-of-war between wanting to settle down in just a few places for several months at a time and itching to move around so we can experience (or maybe I should say taste, since so much is about the food) as many places as possible. For now, we haven’t settled on a firm itinerary but we have drafted a skeletal calendar and committed to a few anchor activities.

One such highlight is the seven-day, 105-mile, Tour du Mont Blanc. I first read about the tour, which circles Mont Blanc on foot, several years ago in a backpacking magazine I bought on a whim when looking for advice on hikes near Washington, DC. (Serendipity can unearth such wonderful surprises!) I saved the brief article and added it to our burgeoning gap year folder. Fast-forward to last summer when Joe and I did a 4-day, 30-mile, rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon. We started at the north rim and camped for three nights as we made our way down to the Colorado River and then back up to the south rim. Although avid hikers, we have no camping equipment or experience and decided to do the hike with Just Roughin’ It, a small local outfitter. Our small group of six (the guide, married schoolteachers from Australia, a Seattle policeman and us) were fast friends – after just a few hours, we were able to share stories and joke as if we’d known each other for years. 

The common experiences of cooking, eating and cleaning up after every meal, sharing a campsite and witnessing the glories of the Grand Canyon led to fast familiarity. Our Grand Canyon trek ended up being part of one of the best vacations we’d ever had! Even before we’d started our climb to the south rim on day three, Joe and I were already scheming about our next guided hiking/camping excursion. We put Yosemite, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks on the list. And then in November, I unearthed the article on the Tour du Mont Blanc.

The magazine writer recommended hiking the tour with an outfitter because of the fickle weather in the Alps, even in the summer. July snow squalls are not out of the question! In fact, there’s a very narrow window of only a couple months when Mont Blanc’s trails are passable for the complete ring around the mountain. And unlike the Grand Canyon hike, where each night’s objective was a campsite, the tour progresses, from France to Italy to Switzerland and back to France, from one mountain refuge to the next – some rustic huts and others small alpine inns. A support van carries trekkers’ bags, except for the daypacks with lunch and daily provisions, and meets you each evening at that day’s destination. The outfitter provides all the food and takes care of sleeping and meal arrangements. Just as with our Grand Canyon trip, hikers are left to concentrate on being properly clothed, the journey itself and the breathtaking scenery. There’s a wealth of information about the Mont Blanc loop on the Internet and I bought Kev Reynolds’s The Tour of Mont Blanc, apparently the de facto Bible on this classic hike. Because the fair weather season is so brief, the mountain refuges (some of which cannot be reserved) fill up quickly during the summer. Several web sites include reports of hikers at the end of a long day of trekking 15+ miles being stranded with no place to stay as the sometimes below freezing night temperatures approach. The possibility of this last situation, combined with the terrifying experience of losing the trail on a solo hike out west last fall (more on this in my next entry), sealed the deal. Our Grand Canyon adventure will be followed by the Tour du Mont Blanc as our next guided hike.

My Voices

Today is one of those days when I wake up and ask myself, "Are you crazy? Are we nuts? In this terrible economy, how can you just walk away from everything and expect to come back on your own terms after 12 full months?" Thank God I haven't had many, but I do admit that there have been a few of them -- days of fear and self-doubt and thoughts of encroaching insanity. Such days usually creep up on me after I hear new economic statistics predicting continued doom and gloom, further unemployment and ongoing malaise. Or, on the tails of a particularly dismal story about middle-aged people being unemployed for years. And years. My inner guilt complex scolds, “Who do you think you are? You’re going to just walk away from your new education degree and Joe’s secure government job and expect to get not one but TWO jobs when you come back?  Do you really think that’s wise?”

These attacks of anxiety usually drive me straight to my gap year spreadsheets for reassurance that we’ve saved enough money, have enough financial cushion and have budgeted accurately. The fear generally sets in for several hours. Initially, it’s the panic that we’ll go broke, have to move in with our children and become laughing-stocks. But then, after fretting for much of the day, the panic about being in the poorhouse turns into a panic that screams, “but we have to go, no matter what! We’ve looked forward to this for so long!” In the late afternoon that brave voice really, really deep inside me always surfaces and says, “You can do it, you must do it and it is the absolute wisest thing you can possibly do. You will never, ever regret it.” And it is this voice that always wins out. I’ve taken some pretty big leaps in my life after listening to the voices in my recesses and in the end, they’ve always been right.

There’s an episode of the TV series The Love Boat (yes, the show was one of my favorites way back when) that I will never forget. It featured a recently retired couple in their late 60s on a much-anticipated cruise. (I wish I could remember the actors who played the husband and wife, but I’m afraid I can’t.) Shortly after the ship sets sail, the wife can hardly contain herself because she has a big surprise for her husband. Over the course of their 40-plus-year marriage, she tells him, she has managed to build a huge nest egg for traveling the world in their retirement. Expecting to be greeted with shouts of joy, she is crushed as he slowly absorbs what she has told him and becomes increasingly angry. He is furious that in order to save for the promise future travels, she denied them so many trips and vacations throughout their working years – the years when they needed journeys the most. He asks, why did she sacrifice getaways while they were young and healthy for the promise of travel when they were old and grey? There were so many times over the years, he said, when there was nothing he wanted more than to be traveling with her. I was probably about 22 years old when I saw that episode and as hokey as it sounds, it taught me an invaluable lesson. There are times when you simply must not wait for tomorrow. You have to listen to your brave voices, shove aside the panicky ones and jump in with both feet.

So why do I still have butterflies in my stomach today? It’s excitement, not fear, I keep repeating. Excitement, not fear.

January Resolutions

For so many years in business, I succumbed to the January mandate of “get out there and make something happen!” After all, January is the start of a new year, a time for resolutions, the perfect excuse for launching new goals and strategies and programs. Clients want new initiatives in the first month of the year, right? Isn’t that what they expect? My bosses always exhorted me to get on the road in January – traveling to conventions, visiting customers and announcing innovative efforts. I’m afraid, however, that my heart was never in it. For me, the Tuesday after Labor Day has always seemed much more appropriate as the start of a new year. September is the time for new shoes and crisp new folders, blank paper and fresh ideas.

In the frigid, unconscious, grey days of January, I want to hunker down and do the hard work of imagining, researching and preparing. In the weeks after New Year’s, my heart turns to planning and filling in the details of our next escape. Over the years, it’s become a ritual of the Martin Luther King holiday weekend: first, I thank God for this great man and what he did for our country and second, I make the initial arrangements for our summer getaway. I’ve always said that I work in order to travel and that I pay our vacation fund before I go to the grocery store. It’s always been this way and I suspect it will never change.

This year, more than ever before, all I want to do this January is plan for and dream about leaving for our gap year in September. As I observe the steely, oh-so-dismal frozen Maryland landscape through the plantation shutters of my bedroom, my dewey-eyed imaginings of strolling through Granada, hiking in the Alps and sunning by a fountain in Provence take over. What I’m looking at now is ashen, lifeless. What I see in my minds-eye is in technicolor and vibrant – filled with promise and potential. Such are the initiatives and resolutions I focus on in January.

No Explanations

I spent the year after college graduation (1978-79) living abroad, in Tours, France, in the heart of the Loire Valley. Finances hadn’t allowed for junior year abroad (and I was not the least bit resentful – why, certainly not I!), but I was lucky enough to receive a Rotary Fellowship that paved the way for 10 months of graduate study in Europe. In addition to tuition, I was given a stipend for living expenses to spend as I pleased. I opted for renting a room in a retired woman’s lovely old townhome in the city center, rather than go the much more expensive route of living with a family and being fed three daily squares. I managed to eat on just a few dollars a day, saving all the rest for traveling. And travel I did.

It was shoestring trekking at its best and I simply wanted to go everywhere. I had lists of places to see – those I’d heard or read about over the years and those that were unknown to me but recommended by my landlady. Almost every weekend, I headed out of town by train and I stretched my travel dollars as far as they would go, sleeping on trains and station benches and in cheap guestrooms. I always managed to treat myself to one proper sit-down dinner on each of my journeys – usually at one of the “best-buy,” prix-fixe restaurants I’d found in Let’s Go – where I would have a salad, entrée, dessert and a carafe of wine, all for about $10. At these dinners, I took lots of time to people-watch and usually wrote my weekly batch of postcards to friends and family back home.

While I enjoyed the familiar routine of keeping in touch, long before the advent of the Internet, email and cell phones, I had an incredibly difficult time adequately writing about the places I’d visited and conveying the sense of adventures (there’s that word again!) I was experiencing. How was I to describe the awe of seeing Mont St. Michel as it rose ominously out of the gloomy English Channel for the first time or the briny smell of the fresh seafood proudly displayed along the narrow streets of St. Malo? What words could possibly express the fear of suddenly being stranded in an unexpected and fierce late-December snowstorm, slipping, sliding and falling in my flimsy white sneakers in the walled fortress town of Carcassonne on a Sunday night when all the hostels and the hotels I could afford were full? Or the subsequent relief of finally being taken in by an elderly nun (with more creases in her face than I’d ever seen in my life) in full black and white habit after knocking with the huge brass knocker on the medieval timbered gate of an unheated convent for the night? I did my best to describe my travels and the places I experienced for those back home, but the words and the pictures were just never quite adequate. I’m certain that my writing never did justice to the poignant, sad story of the grandparents and their grandson I met in Lourdes. The older couple had spent their life savings to travel all the way from Iowa to bring the teenager afflicted with a serious case of cystic acne to the springs of Lourdes, hoping for a miraculous cure. To this day, I’m overcome with melancholy and uneasiness when I think back on my time in Lourdes and the hundreds of people I passed in wheelchairs, on crutches and being carried on their pilgrimage to the holy waters.

Most of my travels that year were solo, although occasionally another student or two joined me. Apparently, few of my peers shared my lust for regularly leaving town. At times I was pleased to be out by myself, determining my own itinerary, but there were many bouts of loneliness, wishing I could be sharing my exploits with someone. It was during the months I spent studying abroad that my now husband and I solidified our relationship – he sailing on merchant ships and I gallivanting around Europe – and I promised myself that one day we would come back to explore Europe at length and create our very own travelogue together. I’d had enough of my unaccompanied jaunts and unsuccessfully trying to describe them to others. We’ve been back to France and Europe many times since my solo year, but only for a week or two at a time – hardly enough time for genuine and thorough exploration.

So here we are, anticipating our gap year in Europe, ready to begin discovering new places and revisiting familiar haunts. Together. We'll share our exploits. Together. No explanations needed.

Luggage Lust

I went to the local mall last week to get a new watch battery and what should have been a 10-minute errand turned into and hour and a half visit. I took a new route to the watch kiosk and discovered a luggage store -- one of those "luggage and travel" retailers that reel me in and in which I could get lost for days. It carried backpacks, duffel bags, suitcases of all sizes and shapes, fanny packs, passport holders, currency converters, language pocket guides, maps, compasses, travel underwear, electrical adapters and so much more. (Who knew you could travel for months with just one pair of lightweight, dry-in-minutes underwear, according to the shelf-talker...?) The promise of future travel always lures me into these stores and I have to admit that I really am afflicted with luggage lust. Some suffer shoe and boot fetishes, others love kitchen gear or scarves but I’m definitely nuts for luggage. Mind you, you’d never guess it by the looks of the raggedy discount variety I haul on and off planes these days. That’s because what I have now is just for day-in, day-out business and routine travel. But when it comes to planning a special trip, or a once-in-a-lifetime getaway like our gap year, that’s when I get serious. When we got married, my husband and I bought a perfect matching set of green and tan bags for our honeymoon and used them lovingly until the handles split and the suitcase-on-wheels variety made them obsolete. 


So into retail travel nirvana I went, not only to browse all the cool gadgets, but to do some serious research on what we'll need next year. I've already sold all the backpacks we'd used for previous European trips on Craig's List because I know we're beyond wanting to (or more accurately, beyond being able to without serious, lasting muscle pulls) strap everything on our backs at this point. But we do want to travel relatively lightly and compactly and a full set of Samsonite just won't cut it. So, we've settled on each getting as large a duffel as possible, without being ridiculous, and of course, they'll have to be on wheels! We figure this'll allow us to carry a good amount of stuff but will also help label us as young-at-heart adventurers, and not stuffy, middle-aged travelers. There were far fewer duffel choices than I’d hoped, but there were several to consider. The pink paisley was definitely not me (in fact, I can't imagine that any luggage in a print would be me!) and I refuse to buy another ubiquitous black travel bag. The luggage store visit whet my appetite for doing more searching for the perfect bag, and as always happens with me and travel gear, I’m sure it’ll be love at first sight when I find my perfect match.