True Tales of a Late-Blooming Nomad

This is my operating title for the collection of journal entries I have gleaned from those thirty years of journals. Here's my introduction:

That’s me. As a young married person, we seemed settled after our three years on an idyllic Caribbean Island when my husband served in the U. S Navy and we luckily found ourselves in Antigua for the remainder of his tour. It was exotic way back then in the early 1960s before Antigua was discovered by the beautiful yacht people after Nelson’s Dockyard was fully operating. We were there during the Cuban Crisis. Funny to say that now in 2022, but it was a scary time. It seems scary times are the norm anymore and I have lived through way beyond my share of them, though I am not complaining, I am happy to be upright and fairly certain of my sharp mind and physical abilities as I wander into yet another adventure called the eighties.

When we returned to the States, we went back to Denver, Colorado where we had both lived and had graduated from high school there. We went back with two daughters. Leo found a good paying tech job and I went back to university part-time at first to finish a bachelor’s degree. We stayed put in Denver for 20 years, divorced but still in Denver. We didn’t leave the U.S during all this time.

Once those daughters decided to take their own paths, all that seemed to suddenly change for me at least but not Leo. Leo stayed put. I did not and as I re-read my journals from 1979 to the mid-2000s, no moss ever had a chance to grow close to me. Reading these journals, I learned I liked adventure more so than being sedentary. I liked adventures in my careers, my l selection of places to attempt residing, and just plain sought out new places and new faces during all my wanderings. I know curiosity played an integral part in all of this. I simply am curious about lots and lots, both physically, spiritually and emotionally. At times, even I felt dizzy reading through my journals. Perhaps it is in my DNA to be this way; my grandparents were immigrants with my maternal grandmother at 17 leaving Florence Italy to board a ship for America-all alone. My paternal side had money before grandpa Garrett decided to sell all in the Netherlands and pack up his wife and seven children to home stead in North Dakota. Can I say, I come to this way of life naturally? Can I say, I am predestined to be this way? Can I blame something? CanI blame someone? Only me, only me, I will take all the blame and all the memories, all the loves, all the travel, all the accomplishments of my career in education, biology, science, and geography. Maybe this all began when at 9 years old our class had two visitors, one from Italy and one from Holland. They asked our class if we could find their countries on a map of Europe. I raised my had, I was the only one to do so and I was very shy and very quiet in class. I walked directly to the map and pointed to each country without a moment of hesitation. The teacher was stunned and so were the other kids. I knew but not through anything taught in school and I have no recollection of someone at home showing me these countries, I just knew.

Geography always fascinated me, I love maps, I love learning from other cultures and I just enjoy explorations of many varieties. This then is my story told mainly from my journals but also from my memories. I organized this by types of adventures. Travel of course. Then careers. Also animals both wild and domestic. If I get really adventurous, maybe even loves throughout all but only if I change names to protect the guilty. Not sure how separate all this will prove to be because it is so entwined. Upon a brief retrospection, entwinned it stays.

Thus, Chapter Headings so far are:

My Mother’s Travel Alarm

The Go Low Stay Slow Lose a Day Backpack Trip

Butterflies Save My Life

A Donkey Ride to Valley of the Kings

The Train Ride to Luxor

An Elephant in Our Tent?

Mountain Gorillas and a Surprise Romance

Fruit Stand, Drunken Cripple and Me

Sailing to Belize

Hippos Are Loud When Munching by Your Ear

Dolphins All Around

A Black-tipped Reef Shark

Chumming for Bears

I Still Live in Guatemala?

Lost Glasses in Murky Water