Heading Out Again

For the second time, i quit my job to travel, and the idea came from Hurricane Irma.

As many know, the first time I took 9 months off after working for the same company for 11 years. During those nine months, I went to Europe and some of Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore).

After returning home for the past two years, I have been working for a travel agency, helping others with cruises, air and land packages. Now most travelers seem to skew towards either the young, who stay in hostels, or the older, whose needs are, well more complex. The agency I worked with (probably like most agencies) tended to serve mostly older travelers. So I have had to deal with air packages where business class, or at least premium economy, is necessary because of arthritis, artificial knees, etc. Similarly, the flights had to be a certain way because it is hard to sit for so long.

And these we're the folks who we're able to go. I have had many incidences of cancelling fully paid-for vacations-because of broken legs, heart attacks, deaths in the family, and just general incidences where "the doctor recommends that I don't travel"

Now, I am not making fun of these people, and I certainly aren't saying older people shouldn't travel. It's more like-if I wait too long, I will be one of those people, Although I will be turning 48, as I learned a few years ago, I still can sit in economy for long period, I can take long walks, I can sleep in the top bunk of cheap hostels and enjoy pub crawls, and that is where Hurricane Irma came in.

Remember Hurricane Irma? For South Florida today, there are a handful of tarps on roofs, and stumps where trees used to be-but that's not what was predicted. This was one of the strongest hurricanes on record-and South Florida was right in it's path. All sane folks we're finding their way out of town. The evacuations/preparations started on Labor day, (although the hurricane wasn't predicted to hit until the following weekend).

By Friday of that week-a lot of folks had evacuated (or tried to). Some friends drove to Alabama because that is where they could find a hotel room. There we're many stories of sitting in traffic for hours and hours on end. There we're other stories of people trying to fly away-only to find their flights we're cancelled.

Anyway, I was able to evacuate at the last minute-miraculously, on just some random -shits-and-giggles checking I found a flight to Dallas, and I was on my way out of the path of the hurricane.

That evening, in my rented Hyundai Elantra, driving across some suburban-sprawled highway between Dallas and Fort Worth, I found a country station, and it played a song I haven't heard before, called "A Last Time for Everything"-by Brad Paisley. It was a sad song-it talked about making out in the backseat of a car, using a fake ID at a college bar, etc-and other stuff that are maybe just rites of passage.

Well I can still travel like i'm young-so that is what did it.