I’ve
been hearing a lot about a bucket list for the past few years. I guess most of
us mentally make a bucket list, things we want to do before we “kick the
bucket”. We might dream of things we would buy and places we want to visit
while we still can. But most of the time we don’t make a bucket list item a
reality. During our marriage, Don and I have never been travelers. We’ve lived
our lives working every day, living week to week and sometimes running short of
money between pay checks. We’ve raised our children who are now hard working
souls, living out their day to day lives. So one night during this long cold
winter we started talking about a long held dream of ours; to see the Grand
Canyon. Don started searching online just to see what a trip would cost, and it
turned out that we could fly there and rent a car rather inexpensively. Each
night we would get online and plan our dream trip. We would change our search
to fly to Phoenix or Las Vegas and compare the prices and the driving times. We
would visit different web sites and marvel at the picturesque vistas to be seen
in Arizona. Naturally, our discussions landed on the photographs we could take!
One long cold night, we did it, we booked two airline tickets. This was
something so scary for me personally, I guess because I’m a natural worrier. I
always worry about spending money on myself and I worry about leaving Murphy
for a week. And my mind lingers on the natural fear we have of flying. I’ve
flown a couple of times. One time Allen Bolling talked me into going up in a
small plane with him. “If your door opens, just tell me so I can lean the plane
the other way and it will shut”, Allen remarked as we took off from Combs
Field. “DO WHAT?” I remember my mind whirling about as my life passed before
me, sure that I would be a greasy spot that the eagle at Dewey Lake would be
dining on. And I didn’t die. I’ve flown commercial a couple of times too, and
those flights were unremarkable and uneventful. But my previous flights were
short, this flight to Salt Lake City is almost 5 hours and I worry about my
tendency for my legs to become restless. I imagine whoever might be our
seatmates will hate me before it’s over, I should probably go to Ritchie’s
Hallmark and buy apology cards in advance.
So for
the last 4 months, we’ve been planning. We’ve bought travel books about the
Grand Canyon and Arizona and Utah. We’ve purchased a larger camera bag for all
my gear and we’ve made a very detailed packing list. We will be desert nomads
for a week as we drive around Arizona. Our itinerary grows each day as we hear
of rock formations that we absolutely must see, and we had to include Winslow
Arizona in our tour; no Eagles fan could miss that town! But, it occurs to me
that flying into the big unknown will be a reflective time for me. What will I
see? I wonder if I will miss our bright green mountains and I will tire of the
red rocks and deep canyons. Will the rocks speak to me their history or will I
crave my home and my dandelions? I try to imagine what the Native American homes
will look like and how I will feel as I remember their history in our great
land. I wonder if my experience will meet my expectations of seeing a totally
different land. In my mind’s eye I ponder on these thoughts with a little
excitement and a little fear. I hope this trip to one of the “7 wonders of the
world” will be a trip of a lifetime and that the photographs I take can convey
the beauty that I know my eyes will witness. Check back to “Around
Prestonsburg” for my photographs of the American West!
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