Our 'Wheels' of Travel...

 I’m sure everyone has a story to tell to sum up the past two years. Some stories will be unbelievably sad, some will tell of overcoming personal circumstances, and some stories will be just plain boring. This may be one of them, but I’m going to tell it the best that I can.

Some of you may have already heard that we had come to the conclusion that our days of travel, nationally and internationally, have come to an end. We have a mountain of photographs that were taken on various vacations when we clocked thousands of road miles on our vehicles. Some other travels were done as we sat on a bus or train and left the driving to someone else, or when we walked, slept, and ate on several cruise ships. This past month, we experienced a new (for us) mode of travel that involved a bunch of wheels.

It all started with the truck that pulled up to our front door, and our son came to load our luggage and drive us to the airport. He and his sister, and their spouses, had planned a ‘nostalgia’ trip for us to the Coachella Valley in southern California. We couldn’t tell them that we weren’t going to do any more traveling, especially in the winter time, so off we went on the first ‘set of wheels’. Arriving at the long-term parking lot, we boarded the second set of wheels on the bus that took us to the airport terminal. We were then introduced to baggage carts at the curb, equipped with sturdy wheels and a hand-controlled brake, so we wouldn’t slip on a patch of ice or trip on a pebble on the sidewalk... More wheels!!!

Insisting that we were fine to walk inside the terminal was met with the disapproval of the family, and they had arranged to be met by airline staff with two wheelchairs. That was a new experience for both my husband and me, but a real treat when we learned how big the terminal had become. We hadn’t been in that terminal for several years, and never in the new addition. It was also a treat for our group of four… we were first on the plane and last to get off! No standing in the huge lines of travelers to many destinations. Did I mention that our carry-on luggage had wheels for easy mobility? That makes five sets of wheels before we even left the ground. The wheels on the plane that bumped down the runway are #6.

We were very familiar with the valley because of our involvement in development projects … starting some 40 years ago. Our two kids were with us on many Christmas vacations in the area, and we all seemed to have many happy memories of our times there. Our accommodation on this trip was tucked up against the San Jacinto Mountains, and at times, I must admit that I was tempted to complain about the heat! We made a number of sightseeing trips this time in rental vehicles… a 6-seater Audi that accommodated four adults and a Tesla that our daughter rents when she is working in the area were added to my list of wheels.  Wheel #9 was more unique … the steering wheel in the Tesla that was not always used when we were traveling in the community. It was our first experience of riding in an automobile on autopilot. Because there were six of us who wanted to travel together, we often drove in tandem (one behind the other), and I got to take pictures from the back seat of whatever set of wheels I was riding. What was once our condo project is now a locked community, the tennis club has been replaced by more condos, and several of our favorite eating locations were still there, but looking a bit ‘used’! Date shakes came to mind when we drove past several date groves, but the grove that we remembered was no longer there. There were new groves further south, and the orange trees were loaded with fruit.

By the way, the Tesla travel was certainly an experience. The control panel, operating by the driver, was more like a flat-screen TV, and had features that were foreign to us. We still wonder about the necessity of one particular feature… why were there four electronic ‘whoopi' cushions installed, one for each passenger?