It has often been said that, if
there’s anything constant in this world, it is change. And when you are on the
go, as travelers always are, change happens more often.
Camping in Chicken, Alaska
Nothing illustrates this more than this
incident in Chicken, Alaska. We were newbies in RVing. We successfully drove
across the Alaska Highway from Calgary, Alberta to spend a cool summer month in
Alaska. But we returned to the Lower 48 on a different route through Chicken,
Alaska, the Top of the World Highway to Dawson City in the Yukon, and then the
Glacier Highway in British Columbia.
I distinctly remember the trauma of taking a
shower in Chicken, a little town of 32 in summer and seven in winter. I thought
I had enough Loonies (Canadian coins) for a hot shower at the campground. I
ended by rinsing with cold water at the sink in a room with no heater in the
cold of fall. I made a mistake and put all of them all at once in the
beginning, I was supposed to put each one before each segment ran out. I had to
learn to be more flexible. We were in a different “home” every few days.
Using Public Transportation in Mexico
City
Then I remember the folly of resisting
local ways. During our 2009 three-week tour of Mexico, we parked our RV in
Teotihuacan where the most visited pre-Hispanic ruins of the oldest
civilization in North America are located. It is 25 miles northeast of Mexico
City. One day, we took the public bus to tour the metropolis. With a population
of 18 million, it is one of the most congested cities in the world. We loved
our tour of Catedral Metropolitana, Templo Mayor, Plaza de la Constitucion, Palacio
Nacional, and the Avenida Central shopping area, ending our day with a visit to
the only authentic castle in North America, Chapultepec.
To get back to Teotihuacan, we needed
to take the train to get to the bus station. But I was horrified to find that
men and women rode in separate carriages to prevent chances of unwanted
encounters. I didn’t want to be apart from my husband, so we hailed a taxi
instead. Bill lost his cell phone and a lot of money and time going through all
the city traffic in that cab. It was good that we made it to the last bus to
Teotihuacan. But I should not have resisted local ways.
Stopping in Guangzhou, China
One year I went to Melbourne, Australia
to babysit my youngest grandson. The cheapskate that I am, I opted for the lowest
fares with long layovers in Guangzhou, China.
I thought not only would I save money, but I would also get to tour the second-largest
Chinese city after Shanghai. Unfortunately, I discovered the seven-hour layover
wasn’t long enough because I needed two hours each way to get to Guangzhou. I
decided to spend those seven hours with my laptop instead.
Sadly, its battery was down to almost
zero. It just so happens that I also have a mechanical aptitude near zero. I
could not get my chargers to work. Luckily, I discovered that my husband had
put a portable one into my bag. That
plus help from a millennial Chinese couple saved me. But when I finally sat
down, I was dismayed. I had forgotten that Facebook is banned in China. I turned
to surfing, only to find that every search landed me in an unfamiliar site,
totally in Chinese. My isolation was complete. I should have brought a book.
It is hard to make a woman in her
seventies to be more flexible. But I love to travel so I would have to keep on
trying. I must be better prepared, arm myself with prior knowledge, and, most
of all, have a great attitude when something unexpected happens instead.