A Lifetime of Travel Stories 1971 - 2018

"A Lifetime of Travel Stories 1971 - 2018" is about my personal experiences while traveling through 21 European countries: two countries in Southeast Asia, two in South America, four in Central America, one in Africa, two in the Middle East, eleven Caribbean islands and several trips to Mexico. Several three month stays in New York City, Miami, Florida, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Ketchum, Idaho, and Charleston, South Carolina are also included.For each trip, I kept a journal of the different activities. The journals are the source for most of the stories in this book. Several repeat trips were to render medical assistance to a community of Garifuna descendants in a small remote village in Honduras. The stories include a trip to Nicaragua to help build a small house with Habitat for Humanity for a family in need. A few fishing stories from: Ambergris, Belize, Ketchum, Idaho, Cayman Brac, Little Cayman, Grand Cayman, Wyoming, the Florida Keys, and South Carolina are included. Luckily, my oldest son Eddie traveled with me to fish in the Florida Keys and Ambergiris, Belize. I was lucky again when my youngest son Scott was able to travel with me to Thailand and Vietnam. I enjoyed my trip with Scott's family when they went to England for a week. It was a surprise to my grandchildren Morgan and Spencer. They did not know I was coming with them until they saw me walk into the gate area at the Atlanta Airport where they were waiting to board. My daughter Jennifer traveled with me to England, Scotland, and France and a two week trip in Alaska. She was a big help in navigating one night during a heavy storm as we tried to find a place to drop off a rental car. She was only ten years old at the time. My partner Cheryl and I have enjoyed traveling together since 2005. One time we traveled to the Middle East including Israel and Egypt. We were on the road for six weeks. It was exhausting but it was worth the effort. We are ready for this Corona virus Covid 19 to be under control so we can travel again. Here are a couple of excerpts from the book: ON OUR DRIVE back to the hotel, I saw a water buffalo being used to plow a rice field. The field was next to the narrow rural road we were on. I asked the driver to stop so we could video the farmer plowing with his buffalo. That's when Dan said, "In Vietnam there are three most important events in a man's life; first is when he marries; second is when he buys a house; and third is when he buys his first water buffalo."AFTER SEVERAL days of seeing the sights and museums, we took the night train back to Moscow. During the night, we cracked open the door to our sleeper because it was too hot. There was a bracket that held the door open but would have been impossible to reach from outside in the hallway. Anyway, some guy managed to open the door during the night. We woke in time to toss him out.AFTER FISHING my favorite section, I walked down the entire creek bank nearly to the bridge. The beauty of this place is like a magnet. You can't get away from wanting to see more. With my aching back, my boots wet and my waders rubbing as I walked, I enjoyed another walk through this high desert plain along the banks of Silver Creek. AFTER CALLING OUR FAMILIES to wish Merry Christmas, Cheryl and I drove to the public beach on the south side of Cayman Brac. The wind was high and the water too rough for snorkeling. That's when we saw a red 30 foot homemade sail/motorized boat with white canopy, a rag tag looking boat. It looked like it had run ashore and some folks were helping the crew with a front end loader to push her back to sea. We walked down the beach and stopped at the point where the vessel had run aground. We walked to the boat and saw immigration officials, police and a medical team helping seven roughly dressed, dark complexion folks who were passengers on the boat.