Member-only story
A Day Trip
Serendipity
I always smile when people say they will finally travel after they retire. If they haven’t traveled much before, they won’t. In fact, extensive travel is more for the young. I enjoyed living in and traveling to different countries during my gap year, sometimes hitchhiking, often sleeping on the beach.
Now when I travel, I want a comfortable bed.
But day trips, that’s another story. Just taking off for the day, loosely planning what to do and where to go, is just as enjoyable when we’re older, perhaps more so since we have more money to spend.
I was off today and decided to take the train to Chicago. I wanted to go to the Christmas Market again and eat that fabulous herb encrusted salmon lunch at the Cheesecake factory.
Waiting for the train, I met another retired teacher. We are everywhere. :-) We decided to sit together and talked the whole time.
It is always funny that we can share fairly personal details about our lives with perfect strangers.
I spent a few hours and then decided to go back. At the train station I saw someone familiar, the retired teacher from before. We both laughed at that coincidence, and then talked the whole way back.
She was nice. I will probably never see her again, but for a little while, our paths crossed.
This made me think about all the people we meet during our time on earth, how many lives we touch, even for a moment.
