We were on a road trip just for pleasure. This scene is around a 1500KM
(900 miles) north of New Westminster. The highway heads to the cities
of Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK. The Alaskan panhandle juts down taking
more than one third of British Columbia's coastline.
Don, a regular reader and contributor, sent the following in response to Monday's entry:
"A travel gene is an interesting premise. I think it's more like we emanated from folks who started out travelling and we just grew up as a nation of travellers. It's sort of, "Well, we've come this far; what's a few hundred miles."
20 odd years ago, I stopped in Brighton, England to visit a couple I had known in Iran (I was on my way home from 'the Revolution', but they had fortuitously left 6 months earlier). I enquired about a couple who had been our friends and asked if they had seen them. They replied in astonishment, "Lord no. They live in Wales." That would have been a several hour trip (less than a day) on the train, so it was out of the question! Just this past summer I had a British colleague who was going to be in Eastbourne, further west on the south coast of England. I suggested that, if I got to Brighton, I might come and visit him. He replied, "But that would be at least 3 hours by train." As if that would be too long a trip.
I think the Continental Europeans are a little less intimidated by distance, but just yesterday I asked my Alsatian friends about driving from Strasbourg to Amsterdam. They both said, "I suppose you could do it, but it would take EIGHT hours." They have lived in Strasbourg for 20+ years and have never done it nor would consider doing it.
I think long distance driving is a North American and, in particular, a US thing. I don't know if Canadians do it. Think of all the 'Snow Birds' who drive south in the fall and back in the spring. And a lot of the long distance travellers, with or with gigantic Winnebagoes, are senior citizens, who in most any other country would not venture more than a few miles from home at that age.
In 1985, my 70-year-old mother and I, armed only with a AAA map, reservations at several Holiday Inns and tickets to the Grand Ole Oprey, started out from Bradford and ended up in Greenville, Mississippi a week later, spent a week there and then another week driving back to Bradford a different route.
We just look at driving distance in a different way partly because the US is so big and partly because we've always done it on relatively good roads and in fairly comfortable cars with lots of inexpensive road-side accommodation and cheap and convenient restaurants. And travelling long distance didn't require border crossings, a passport, changing money or hassles with a language. And very often, the places along the way or the destination was populated with old friends or extended family.
By the way, whatever happened to Howard Johnson's, the first franchised restaurant and motel chain which would have seemed to have been in perfect position to capitalize on today's travel oriented society. They've all but disappeared."