Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Sometimes the best vacation trips are just visiting old friends!


Sometimes the best vacation trips are just visiting old friends. At this stage of life, many of my friends are no longer doing long distance driving. Since we’re still able to do it, we’re the ones who have to reach out. We just returned from New England to visit old friends in Cambridge MA--Rick’s old friend from first grade(!!) Norman and his wife Fran. They have been living the past 40 years in a house in Cambridge crammed with books. Norman is no longer much interested in travel but through a world of books he is roaming the world. It raises interesting questions: who is the real traveler: someone on a packaged tour to China or Norman at home in Cambridge currently immersed in Chinese literature?

After Cambridge, we went to Vermont to visit an old friend of mine, Bob and his wife Susan who is now a good friend of mine and Rick’s.
One of the benefits of long term marriage is that my friends become Rick’s friends and vice versa. (Exceptions, of course). My friendships don’t go back almost 70 years like Rick’s. My oldest friends go back to the my college years and I’ve know Bob for over 40 years. He is still working and has a very demanding job, so it’s easier for us to visit him and Susan. They have a beautiful house about a half hour from Burlington VT with a pond, many acres of land, and a gorgeous garden which Susan designed.


I envy Susan her vast canvas that she can fill with plants. My garden has reached capacity and I can only cram in another plant if one dies—-which my plants obligingly do on a regular basis. However much as I love the beauty of rural Vt., I could not give up urban life. Trade-offs, trade-offs.

3 comments:

  1. Hurrah for old friends, relaxed visits, books, and beautiful gardens, whether crammed or vast! Yes, and for lovely photos too.

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