Summer Travels by Patricia Forsythe




I don’t know how your summer has been, but mine has been way too short, and way too busy.  I did a great deal of traveling, going from one side of the country to the other, visiting my kids and grandkids (If they really loved me, they’d all move back to Arizona!).
It’s always fun to see the sights in new places, or visit a place you’ve been before and see something new. The most interesting part of any travel, though, is people watching. I like to study people in airports and speculate on where they’re going and what they’ll be doing. It’s easy to guess when I’m on my way to visit my son in Las Vegas. I don’t gamble, but it appears that my fellow passengers are either planning to gamble, or get married. I’ve often seen couples wearing T-shirts that say ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’. I saw one couple wearing those who were accompanied by an older man wearing one that said ‘Bank’. I’m guessing he was the father of the bride.

The funniest was on a visit to Latourell Falls near Portland, Oregon. We saw a bride, high up on the hillside near the falls, being photographed. There was no groom in sight, but later, she was joined by two friends, possibly her bridesmaids. One was in a slinky black dress, and one carrying an enormous green dress with what appeared to be red and yellow petticoats. It’s quite a hike from the trail up to the place where the photographer was, but they were wearing sandals and not spike heels.

We didn’t stick around to see the rest of the photo shoot, but as we left the area, we met a woman driving a vintage convertible accompanied by a man wearing a bear costume. Maybe he was the groom.
How about you? Any exciting travels or funny sights this summer?

Comments

  1. A bride and two unusual bridesmaids. Must be a story in there somewhere :) I must be having a really boring summer. The most exciting thing, well, besides going to Denver for Nationals, is that our power went out twice this past week during the monsoon storms. Oh, and we bought a new couch :)

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    1. New couch sounds great. Power outage, not so much!

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  2. I hate to fly but I love to people watch at airports. Right now I'm reading a bio by an airline stewardess. Suddenly, teaching sounds easy.

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  3. I love people watching, too. I used to sit in a restaurant and try to make up what couples across the room were there for, what they were saying to each other and where they'd go when they left. Airports, malls and parks are fun, too. Like Cathy, Nationals in Denver was most interesting of my summer. There were plenty of odd street people to guess about. But mostly I found their situations sad.

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    1. I know what you mean, Roz. It's especially hard to see those odd street people out in the summer heat.

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  4. I don't think I could ever be an airline stewardess. I would be constantly confused about time zones. And yes, teaching is way easier since in the classroom, you're the boss.

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  5. It seems I'm always seeing weddings at the local botanical gardens with the bride and other women in wedding party in fun cocktail dresses and not all the wedding party dressed exactly alike. A friend of mine and I were walking on what for Green Bay is a "cool" street, and we saw a group taking photos in front of a piece of sculpture on a street corner. We stopped and had a friendly conversation with this happy group and wished them well. The kinds of weddings I see these days are so appealing, and I wish I'd seen those women hiking up the trail.

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    1. Yes, botanical gardens are popular, and so are old barns, and outdoor settings. The girls on the trail to the falls seemed to be having a great time, laughing and helping to balance each other on the slippery slope.

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  6. I love people watching! I'm dying to find out about the bride with the 2 funny bridesmaid. There has to be a way to find out!!! I bet she has pictures posted on social media somewhere. Okay, internet detectives, where are you?

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    1. I'm sure it's a great story, too. My son tells me they see that kind of thing all the time around the various waterfalls in the area -- although he admitted the man in the bear suit was a first for him.

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  7. I love those odd situations where you can make up your own story about the people you see. I just wish there was a way to know if the guess was correct.

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    1. I suppose we could go up and ask, but then they'd think we're stalkers.

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  8. My summer consisted of gutting my bathrooms and creating new ones! Yours sounds much better.

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    1. Maybe, but I'll bet my bathrooms won't be as nice as yours.

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  9. I'm not sure exactly what I did with this summer, but somehow it's nearly gone. I loved your wedding party picture story!

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  10. Your stories are so much fun! Great post. I’ve spent my summer, except for Denver RWA, downsizing for a move to AZ. What summer? 😉

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  11. What fun stories! It's been a quiet summer, lots of work and parenting and almost no travel. I love the image of a guy in a bear suit being driven in such a nice old convertible!

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