What a Way to Go

We’re talking about our favorite mode of transportation this week. My least favorite? A horse.
Now that that is out of the way, I will admit to never traveling on a real train or a subway. I have one vague recollection of a trip on a trolley car when I was very little. Not the San Fran tourist one; but a real public transport in Washington, DC.I could not have been older than 3, and I was with my aunt. We didn’t go far, I imagine.

I went with another aunt on a fairly long bus trip. It was a chartered bus and there were no troublesome characters, but it wasn’t my favorite trip. It did have the riding/driving advantage of being able to see around us. Since that was my only trip, (so far), to New York City, I would rather have been bussed around the U.N. and the old buildings with the apartments on top and the shops in the basements than to have flown in. (I’d fly now.)

I like to fly. I have not flown in quite a few years. I was ill twice on flights, (not the plane’s fault, but turbulence did not help), and I had two potential disasters, but we’re covered these in previous posts.

I wouldn’t mind flying often, despite a few bad experiences.

I do love traveling by car. If you are with the right people, you can stop when you want, you can make side trips and you can control the climate.

And you can see everything!

I have made big moves and drove/ rode each time. Maryland to Virginia; Virginia to Idaho; Idaho to Colorado; Colorado to Kentucky. We drove all over Colorado when we were there. We drove all over the Washington, DC area when we lived there, too, to the mountains or to the beach or boating.

I LOVED boating! I have not been on a big cruiser and I don’t think I’d like to be on a mega-ship, but I did enjoy my time on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, then out to the Atlantic. I loved piloting the boats. I enjoyed seeing no land and I enjoyed seeing /landing at places that I could never have traveled to in any other mode. What a thrill! I never should have let myself become land-locked.

I still enjoy traveling by car, but I can no longer drive very far anymore. I did most, if not all, of the driving on the long moves. I love the open road! Even when the scenery through the Midwest was only corn, corn, hogs, corn, corn, cows, corn, hogs, corn, it was fun. I could not imagine making the trip through prairie in a covered wagon.

I don’t belong in a past century!

And although I have been on the back of a motorcycle a few times, there is no way I would agree to a long trip on one, not even when I was young. But, you know, I have seen very few young people on motorcycles in many years. It is mostly 60+ yr olds around here; 50s, at least. Maybe motorcycles are no longer economical modes of transportation….or maybe the younger folk have gotten too smart!

We have a number of serious bicyclists that pass through here, even though they have not completed the Bourbon Trail for bikes and it is scary on some of the narrow local roads. That way is also out; I never learned to ride a bike.

I think I touched on a few that weren’t mentioned this week. Any comments or ideas?

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