Two months from now I will be in India. Wow……who’d a thunkit? Especially since this was not even a figment of my imagination before Lisa presented the idea with a high level of excitement about 24 hours ago.
The back story: Sometime when the kids were really young I decided we would start a family tradition of the Golden Birthday Trip. The Golden Birthday was defined as the one when the child turned the age of the day they were born.
Dan was born March 8, so the year he turned 8 he got to plan a trip. He wanted to go to New York City, so I got a kid’s guide to the Big Apple from the library and we soon had a fun itinerary that HE (yes, Dan did it all) designed. We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Intrepid WWII aircraft carrier museum, FAO Schwartz toy store, the Statue of Liberty, and the World Trade Center. (I’m so glad we got there.) We drove in from Connecticut, stayed at my sister’s apartment in Brooklyn, and the whole trip probably cost us a couple of hundred bucks , if that.
Sam’s was next, even though he is the youngest. He was born on October 13th, so all that winter he had a lot of ideas. Finally, he decided we should go to Nova Scotia and he wanted his siblings, who were already on their own, to join us. So, since Lisa was working for Enterprise car, we rented a minivan, and all five of us drove there from West Virginia. We stayed mostly in b&bs, ate lobster at least six times, went sea kayaking, white water splashing on the Bay of Fundy tidal bore, enjoyed sea scallops in Digby, visited two colonial forts, heard a fantastic concert in Cape Breton, went to Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont, and rounded out the trip with a stop at Niagara Falls. The trip cost a pretty penny with all five of us, as you can imagine.
Lisa, meanwhile moped, “I have to wait so long!!!” Her birthday is August 27. I signed, “Yes, you do, and your trip will probably be the most expensive so only you and I will go to keep the cost down.”
And so, two birthdays ago, Lisa turned 27, and what with all else going on with our pending move to Oregon, it could not happen. She waited patiently.
Prior to the move we sold my car, figuring it would be easier to only drive one the 3000 miles from West Virginia to Oregon. And so, I notified Graham that I would like to grab $2,000 of payment for Lisa’s Golden Birthday Trip. I then gave her the funds to keep safe.
And so, when she came in yesterday, dancing about this travel opportunity to India for 6 nights there, including tours, lodging, some meals, airfare and all taxes and transfers and all the other ways tours nickel and dime you, for about the same as a roundtrip airfare, I swallowed and said, sounds good.
I never expected to get to India!
goingplaceslivinglife 
January 16, 2014 at 6:53 pm
so happym 4 u!
January 16, 2014 at 4:50 pm
If you have a dream that takes you some place it is amazing how often it actually happens.
January 16, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Great comment, Charlie! And so true about so many things in life…..having a dream…conceptualizing a plan…..the steps to complete and run become evident!
January 16, 2014 at 4:45 am
Did I read this correctly – or did you suggest that you’ll only need 2000.00 for this trip? Wow.
January 16, 2014 at 5:39 am
The base price of the trip is going to cost $2600. We need to get visas and plan for some meals and personal buying. I figure because of the price of those items, I need $1000 more for the two of us. The trip is being offered for about the same as RT airfare and India has been on her bucket list, so…..
January 16, 2014 at 5:49 am
Wow.
That includes a clean hotel? 😉
January 16, 2014 at 6:12 am
Yeah, hotel to western standards. Tours, transfers, taxes, breakfasts, 1 dinner.
January 16, 2014 at 6:57 am
Awesome! I saw some documentaries about India. It must have just looked at the downside.
January 16, 2014 at 5:12 pm
I believe there is a lot of poverty there and will be hard to see….but I will observe it. Already believing there will be a blog about “counting our blessings” afterwards.
January 15, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Looks like this is the year for unexpected travel. I swore I’d never fly again since all the TSA stuff and the way the airlines are stuffing more people into less space. But then I was offered a free place to stay not far from where I was born…. so I’m thinking I may just do it probably around May.
January 16, 2014 at 5:13 pm
I WILL ask my doctor for some help to sleep on the plane…I never can and this is going to be a VERRRRRRRRRy long flight.