Category: Places

Travel tales

On By VievesVineIn Places, travel1 Comment

Gary and I strapped on life jackets for our Snake River raft ride in the Grand Tetons. Kal, our guide, directed four women who were traveling together to one side of the raft. 

An older gentleman and what looked to be his 50-ish year-old son plopped down on the opposite side, leaving no room for us to climb aboard. 

“Uhh,” said Kal, “could you please move across so this couple can get in?”

The men hesitated but complied.

Once seated, I looked over to the dad and said, “Hi, where are you from?”

Unsmiling, the man said, “I’m from California. He’s from Arizona. Please, don’t talk during the ride. I want to enjoy nature.”

Hmmm. 

We were embarking on a 3.5-hour tour along one of the most beautiful stretches in the United States with a guy who didn’t like people.

For me, the joys of traveling include the people I meet along the way. 

If Gary and I had not engaged in conversation with Alexander, our breakfast server at Ole Faithful Inn in Yellowstone, we would have been lost, literally.

According to the map, Biscuit Basin was the starting point for our hike to Mystic Falls, but Alexander said, “It’s still closed after the hydrothermal explosion last summer.”

He said, “It’s a prettier hike if you go this way,” and gave us directions.

We reciprocated with information about hiking in West Virginia and rafting on the Upper and Lower New River.   

“I’m going to make that trip,” said our breakfast server-turned trail guide.  

At the overlook for the Grand Prismatic hot spring, a young woman used an extendable phone tripod to take pics and snapped one for us as well. 

“She’s a keeper,” I told her boyfriend, “You need to stick with her.”

“Hopefully forever,” he said. 

I paid the favor forward at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone by taking photos for others. A Chinese family did the same for us.  

We didn’t know it then, but that sealed our friendship. As Gary and I looped our way back up the trail from the Lower Falls, someone said, “Here…here. You sit here.”

From a bench in the corner of a switchback, the Chinese grandfather beckoned us, laughing, “Here…sit here. I am worried about you.”

We sat. 

His English was limited. Our Chinese? Nonexistent. But together we enjoyed the majesty all around us.

Over a fireside chat, a New Jersey couple enlightened us about Wisecars, a company that saved them half on their car rental. They also said, “Eat at the Snow Lodge. It keeps its chef and a full menu while other spots prepare for hibernation.”

A National Park Service employee said she and her husband left upstate New York five years ago to work and live in Yellowstone year-round. In winter, she snowmobiles 33 miles to work and 33 miles back and loves every minute of it. 

Then, we landed on a raft below the Grand Tetons with a grumpy old man. Embarrassed, his son offered to take photos of us whenever I attempted selfies. 

The river ebbed and flowed beneath the towering beauty of the Grand Tetons. The dad said not a word—not even to his son. Gary and I talked with the women on the other side of the boat.

From the raft’s middle, our guide pointed out two bald eagles and shared stories about the interesting wildlife he’s encountered. We asked Kal where he had grown up (Idaho) and if he stays in Wyoming in winter (he does). 

When we docked, Gary and I were the last to climb out. We thanked Kal for a lovely ride.

“Hey, I’m sorry for that awkward start,” he said. “Thanks so much for talking and asking questions. That’s what it’s all about. That guy should have booked a solitary ride.”

“No problem,” we said.

For us, the grumpy old man was just another travel tale.

Out of this world

On By VievesVineIn Commentary, PlacesLeave a comment

Maybe you’re an astronaut wannabe, someone whose dream has always been to fly into outer space. 

Maybe you want to do more than ride in a spaceship. You want to jog on the moon, Jupiter, Venus, or Mars.

But maybe, just maybe, time traveled faster than you ever dreamed, too fast to make those goals happen.

Don’t worry. You can go—when you’re dead.

But you need to make your “travel” plans sooner rather than later and have saved a whole lotta cash. 

Dead, you ask? 

Yes, dead, as in no longer walking, talking, and breathing here on Earth. Oh, and there is one additional stipulation: your remains must be cremated.

Then, and only then, can you—your ashes to be specific—fly into space. 

You can arrange to have your cremated remains launched into the cosmos—for a price. The cost ranges between $3500.00 and $13,000.00, depending on the type of service you choose for your final sendoff. 

Starting at the basement bargain price of $3500.00, you can find flights that allow your remains to experience zero gravity. They’re flown into space and then back to Earth. 

Or—for $5000—you could choose to have your remains orbit the Earth in a spacecraft.

On the downside, either of those choices leaves your breathing self an additional and difficult decision to make. What to do with the ashes after they return from such an amazing space odyssey?  What final resting place could top experiencing zero-gravity or orbiting the Earth?

If making difficult decisions is not your thing, up your budget to say $12,500.00 or $13,000.00. That kind of cash opens the door to a couple of otherworldly options.

  1. It will pay for the Moon to be the final resting place for your ashes.
  2. Or you can choose for your cremated remains to be sent on a permanent celestial voyage into deep space and the solar system.

There are really and truly companies that provide these kinds of journeys for cremated remains. Look them up.

If I were interested in this kind of star-studded send-off—I assure you I am not, but if I were—I would ask for proof before I swiped my card. 

“How will you verify my ashes have experienced zero-gravity, orbited the Earth, are on the moon, or are soaring around deep space?”

There’s no way they could prove any of the above to me. By the time the space death-odyssey company could provide evidence of my astronomic trip, I would be but a pile of ashes.  

I suppose the company would have to swear to my alive self that it would give my relatives airtight proof that my wishes were observed. On the other hand, if my loved ones didn’t pay for the service, I doubt they would care all that much.

We could ask Eugene Shoemaker if he thinks his ashes are really on the moon. But wait, we can’t. He’s dead. 

While people have had their ashes sent to the moon using private companies, Shoemaker was the first and only person to date to have his ashes purposefully buried on the moon. His cremated remains were launched into space in 1998 with NASA’s Lunar Prospector. 

Shoemaker was the founder of astrogeology. His cremated remains experienced the zenith of interstellar travel on the Mercedes-Benz of spaceships to honor his work on impact craters.

Good for him, but not for me. I’m not an astronaut wannabe. 

The closest my remains might get to space travel is if Gary has a portion of me launched in a firework. I like fireworks, but I’m not too sure I’d want to be a firework.

I’ll think I’ll keep my final wishes down to Earth. My soul won’t give a hoot about where my ashes wind up.

Mrs. Murphy

On By VievesVineIn Commentary, Everyday Life, Friends & Family, Places1 Comment

Some people come into our lives and stay for a while. Others dance and flicker among us for a brief moment, like a candle’s flame.

How long people have known us has little to do with the impression they leave on us. Sometimes, we don’t realize the extent of that imprint until much later.

That’s how it is for me with Mrs. Murphy.

Every now and then, Mrs. Murphy rises from my heart and into my consciousness. I can’t say what triggers the appearance of those memories, but I welcome them all the same.

She was the Music Director at the First Baptist Church of my childhood in southern West Virginia. I picture her tall with a solid frame, but then I was small and skinny.

Her close-cropped dark hair held a bit of wave or curl. Maybe a perm? She wore black framed eyeglasses with upswept corners (in cat-eye fashion)—or so, I thought.

Mrs. Murphy’s responsibilities included directing all choirs, Cherub, Youth, and Adult.

“Responsibilities.” I wrote that word with hesitancy. Mrs. Murphy exhibited so much joy in what she did that it never occurred to me it was part of a job.

She even made certain the kids’ choirs had holiday parties, Halloween, Easter, and Christmas.

When my friends and I were promoted to Youth Choir, we walked to the church every Wednesday after school for practice in the big sanctuary with an inclined floor.

Mrs. Murphy got a workout at those practices. She spent the first 15 minutes running up and down the middle aisle in her chunky heels, trying to get the boys to stop rolling under the pews and take their places in the choir loft.

“Now, boys, come out from under there,” she said with firm gentleness.

Then, she clapped her hands to coax a little stronger, “Come along, now, boys. It’s time to get started.”

My brother Donald, two years my junior, was born with a baritone, man-sized voice. He took his place in front of the church with the Cherub Choir, in his white robe and ginormous red bow, and belted “Jesus Loves Me” like a miniature Johnny Cash with a little added thunder. The rest of the cherubs were reduced to a tweet here and a tweet there.

I was a cherub alumnus by then. Donald’s “Jesus Loves Me” roar sent our brother John and me into titters, followed by giggles until we tumbled from the pew and tried to smother our howls into the deep red carpet. We hiccupped rising chortles, but that didn’t keep tears from laughing all the way down our cheeks.

Mrs. Murphy remained unfazed.

On Sunday mornings when the little ones took front and center, her hands and arms sang with the notes as she led her Cherub charges. The louder Donald’s voice, the bigger her smile.

When thoughts of Mrs. Murphy came to me last week, it occurred to me that I knew very little about this woman I admired. We lost touch after I moved away in 6th grade.

I emailed my very first best friend, Stilts, whose parents called her Nancy, but I never would.

“…I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Murphy, our choir director. I loved her! Do you know what happened to her? I can’t recall her first name. Ugh.”

Stilts wrote back, “…Her name was Florence Murphy and her husband, Eugene…they were the most fabulous couple at church and as neighbors.”

Lucky Stilts, to have had Mrs. Murphy for a neighbor.

I don’t know if Mrs. Murphy enjoyed gardening, if she had a dog, or liked to cook. I don’t know if she had children or how many. I don’t recall the color of her eyes.

I do know she brought music to the hearts of many. And she loved children.

Maybe, for me, that was enough.