Bon voyage

As I write this, my mother and a friend are on a jet somewhere between Austin and JFK. A few hours from now she will board an EgyptAir 777 bound for Cairo.

For the next few weeks the two of them will be traipsing around Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Dubai. I don't know how she will be getting around all of these places, but I'm pretty sure camels will be involved at some point.

Whenever she's been home for a few weeks, my mother's feet start to itch. The next thing you know she's on something with an engine heading into the unknown. If you're a lady of a certain age with a thirst for adventure and you need a travel buddy, give my mom a call--she's ready to go today. Well, not today. Today she's on her way to Egypt.

Our planet has seven continents--she's touched 'em all. There are somewhere around 195 nations on Earth--I'm sure she's been to well over half of them, but even she doesn't know the exact number. From bastions of civilization to Third World hellholes, there's no place she won't go given half a chance.

She announces her upcoming trips casually. "What's new, Mom?" I'll ask."

"Not much, Gui (don't ask). I'm going to Greece next week," she'll reply. "I got a last minute deal that was too good to pass up."

This happens a lot.

Mom often complains about her difficulty in finding travel companions from her pool of lady friends, and I cluck along sympathetically. I don't have the heart to tell her that there aren't that many septuagenarians out there anxious to climb the Himalayas or hike through the Laotian jungle.

I'd love to tell you what these experiences are like for her, but she's not very good at documenting her travels or talking about them.

"So, how was your trip to (insert name of exotic locale)?" I'll ask her when she gets home from one of her adventures.

"Oh, it was nice."

I'll press for details, but she usually won't have much more to say than that.

I'd post pictures of some of her adventures, but I don't have any. She doesn't either. Mom and cameras don't get along well, and I don't think she even bothers to bring one with her on her trips these days. I'm sure her traveling companions take pictures, but I haven't seen any of them in many years.

Unlike my mother, Dad always had good travel tales when they got back home. I miss my father. I'm sure he'd have a great story about the camels.

Mom hints that she might begin to cut back on her travels soon, but I hope she keeps it up as long as she can. I inherited my own sense of wanderlust from my parents, so I know exactly how it feels to find yourself in a new land and open to all kinds of possibilities.

Bon voyage, Mom!