"Journey over the entire universe in a map, without the expense and fatigue of traveling, without suffering the inconveniences of heat, cold, hunger, and thirst." Cervantes

            My wife likes to travel.  (I’m married.)  Not just to the grocery store but to Outer Mongolia.  Nothing gives her more joy (I’m sad to say) than to plan such a trip in the minutest detail.  Does she want coffee or tea on the morning of the fifth day in Ulan Bator?  But I learned a long time ago that for a woman, having a man along, means that there is a handy person to carry the luggage.  The first time my wife went on one of her excursions alone, she packed only 12 suitcases instead of her normal 38.  When I asked her why, her reply was, “You don’t expect me alone to carry 38 do you?”  She returned from the trip quite as she had left so I guess the 26 dregs weren’t missed.

            I must also admit that I, in my old age, miss the point of travel.  It seems like an awful waste of energy and money and to what purpose?  I’m not talking about trips to visit grandchildren, mind you.  I’m talking about trips akin to seeing the biggest ball of string in the world or some such like.  If one wants to see all of that string, one can sit at home and with a few keystrokes bring a photo up on the computer and, all the while, sip a pinot noir and not move or haul luggage or be subjected to the sight of exotic pretty females parading back and forth…and back and forth…and….  But I digress.

For those not old, travel may broaden.  You get to hear a foreign language besides Spanish.  Some of the architecture is different and opens up your mind to the vast horizons of human creativity - or something like that.  But for the old, your mind doesn’t need to be opened.   A closed mind is more the norm.  There’s too much stuff crammed into it already.  Besides if it were important you’d’ve already learned it.  So we can safely rule out education as the reason to travel.

What remains - culinary arts?  Have you ever eaten a steamed Amur sturgeon after being marinated in the extract of Adonis mongoloca as prepared by the greatest Xiongnu chef?  I haven’t either.  Such a meal is not on my bucket list and I doubt if I’ll miss it as I lay on my deathbed.  Besides, I like to cook.  It’s fun to try to get an exotic dish right after 2 or 3 tries.  OK, sometimes it’s 5 or 6.  There’s a feeling of accomplishment and you didn’t have to go half way around the world.  There’s no luggage to carry to the kitchen either.  And the pretty women – oh, never mind.  Alas, my local grocery doesn’t carry either Amur sturgeon or Adonis mongoloca but I can use tilapia and vanilla.  Experience gathered from life enables you to make do with what you have.

My wife tells me that she meets the most interesting people on her travels.  She’s led a sheltered life.  If she’d allow me to repeat my stories I could be interesting, too.  But as soon as I start telling a story, she says, “Oh, not #87 again!”  And the few times I’ve been shanghaied to go – for example – on a cruise, most of our companions have been old people.  Gad.  Old people can be interesting but they get boring when they try to tell other people why they’re interesting – and most of them do.  They – like children – should be quiet until spoken to.  Let the questioner lead the old fart along the interesting trails of their human experience.  It works better that way.  But old people have the annoying habit of interjecting their opinion on things like politics, racism, religion, and their grandkids.  The questioner, if allowed, can pose questions on important matters like, “Was the first time you had sex in a haystack?”  Cruises are a waste of time.  No one talks about haystacks.

©2014 Lester C. Welch