Close Your Eyes, Point, and Go

Welcome to halfway day, everyone!

So, I ran an errand yesterday afternoon, leaving the house at around 445, EST. And it was already pretty dark. )-:

As I often say, the world – and all of us in it – has/have plenty of other fish to fry, and, sure, there are other far more important things. (But somehow, I can’t stop thinking of ancient peoples, wondering when that bright yellowish/orange thing that would eventually be called “the sun” would start to shine a little more and sit higher in the sky.)

That said, I know I’m a broken record, but we really are getting there, moving in precisely the right direction.

So, for today’s halfway mark, let’s talk travel.

(I mean why not, right? One of these days, God willing, we’ll be able to make it all work a whole lot easier.)

Until then, let’s start planning wherever general wanderlust might take us.

For now, I’ve got a 15-stop itinerary planned. And for the record, I don’t have a particular order; I don’t care where we go first – as long as we go! It’s ‘gonna be a bit of a stream of consciousness, but as always, I promise we’ll do it together.

THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR – My grandma always talked about having been there once. Yep, little Mary Gangichiodo (shortened to “Gangi” when her family first came over), all 4’ 11” of her, standing on the Rock of Gibraltar and smiling. Ever since I was a little boy, she was that way about all things. She was just happy to be doing anything. Just happy to “be.” So, for her, I’ll make it our first stop.
BELLE FOURCHE, SOUTH DAKOTA – The exact geographic center of the entire United States. Imagine that we’re all there, right in the middle of that small town of just under 6,000 people. Right in the middle of the road. Right in the middle of town. Right smack in the middle of the country.
FORT BRAGG, CALIFORNIA – Nope, not the famous army base (actually located in North Carolina), but instead, it’s a small Northern California town that sits right on the Pacific Ocean.
ALGHERO, SARDINIA – A friend of mine told me that there’s a restaurant located there, one that actually sits inside a cave, right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. According to her, food to die for.
ARNHEM, HOLLAND – I still have an ambition – have had it for years now – to walk, bicycle, even crawl if I had to (and I may well have to opt for that final mode if I wait any longer!) to travel through Holland, from Eindhoven to Arnhem. Trekking 64 miles in all, all along the route – from bridge to bridge – all part of a failed plan to end World War II by Christmas 1944.
TACOMA, WASHINGTON – This may seem something of a pedestrian destination for our sojourning travel log. But if the goal is just to point and go, let’s go there. Just so we can say we did.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – In addition to all its beauty – the mountains and wide-open spaces – there’s that 500+ years without a war thing. Let’s do some skiing, maybe, and see what we can see.
CAPE HORN (SOUTHERN-MOST TIP OF SOUTH AMERICA) – How many times can you hear certain lessons in a classroom, look at a spot on the map and think: “How hard can it be to get there?” And with that in mind, I guess that’s why I want
to go.
GALLIPOLI – Historically, speaking, you’d have to say it fosters some sadness. Some pretty awful things happened there. Still, I’m curious. So, let’s take a boat out to the Dardanelles Strait, located near northwestern Turkey. I’ll bring the Dramamine!
THE SARGASSO SEA – And I’ll be cool with it if we can just get in sight of it. (Yeah, just another one of those things, I guess, another one of those places that I somehow feel compelled to see.) It seems there was a novel by a writer named Jean Rhys, who penned a romantic tale (think Jane Eyre, but way offshore) that nearly forty years later was made into a film of the same name. And now that I know the sea itself is just off the coast of Bermuda, I figure it isn’t all that tough for us to get there.
NOME, ALASKA – You may recall from an earlier thread that I’ve got this semi-obsession with Alaska. (I say a “semi-obsession,” because those who know me even a little can confirm that I simply despise the cold! That’s why we’ve got to go in the summer and experience that perpetual daylight thing. Who’s going with me?!)
AGRA, INDIA – Much like the feeling you may have had back in that elementary school classroom we alluded to earlier, when you were busy learning about London’s Big Ben, Paris’ Eifel Tower, and The Hague (Holland’s royal capital), I’ll bet that the Taj Mahal (located in Agra, India) was somewhere on that core list.
PAGO PAGO – Long, long trip I know, just to see lots of palm trees and maybe a few sea turtles, but imagine the possibilities…With digital communications being what they are, you could certainly receive calls there. Yes, imagine it:
“So, how’s things? Where are you?”
“Great, thanks. And I’m actually in Pago Pago.”
I speak to my younger brother pretty much every day, and I’m sure he’d love to hear stories of how we all just ended up somewhere in the middle of the North and South Pacific Ocean(s).
LOMA LINDA, CA – Nestled in San Bernadino County, CA sits Loma Linda, the childhood home of a favorite actor of mine. (Not to mention that it just has one of those names. Yeah, one of those alliterative names that makes you want to visit its small downtown area. We can sit at a quiet, outdoor restaurant, and see what there is to see.)
GIZA, EGYPT – Yep, I really want to see both the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I mean if Napoleon Bonaparte really did blow the nose right off the face of the Sphinx (unintentional, but really bad pun!) with stray cannon fire, I do think we need to see it up close.

OK, so who’s coming along? (And before you answer, just in case these destinations don’t really float your boat, I promise that I’ve got plenty of other places in mind. And I’ll bet that you do, too.)

So, let’s see what other destinations we can ponder.

And with only a fortnight left to go until the axis flip, I’ll look forward to catching up with you all tomorrow.

JFish

JOHN L. FISCHER