It was my Steamboat friends that gave me the 1,000 Places To See Before You Die Calendar. She just recently retired as my financial adviser, after presenting me with the calendar late last year as a client gift. It’s been a fixture on my desk, but also a constant reminder of how many destinations I’ve yet to visit. There’s usually only about one location a week that I’ve already been to see, with aspirations of going to them all. That will simply not happen considering longevity and budget. Recent pages featured pictures of Cook Islands; Edinburgh, Scotland; Kyoto, Japan; Bavaria, Germany; New Brunswick, Canada; Apulia, Italy; and Prague, Czechoslovakia, that have not been on my radar. However, surprisingly there are six locations that I have explored, including Santorini, Greece; Grand Teton National Park; Bora-Bora; Bangkok, Thailand; Provence, France; and the Indiana Dunes, not too far from my hometown. As each day passes, a new destination awaits. Soon, I will have gone through the entire year, and will probably have to buy my own 2020 version of the calendar, By then, I’ll be at a new desk in a new writing environment.

We have several appointments this weekend to look at apartments, with only a few weeks until we close on our house. It will then be a mad scramble to get re-situated in a new “home” between business and personal travel commitments. We’ve found a location in a desirable downtown vicinity, within walking distance of restaurants and businesses. It will make our lifestyle very cosmopolitan, similar to when we moved to Portland five years ago. In this case, however, we’ll have half the space we’re used to inhabiting. Most likely we’ll have only one bedroom with little room to entertain overnight guests. We’ve maintained extra bedrooms these past few years with few takers. I would expect that there will now be more demand since we will no longer be able to comfortably accommodate them.

Despite the beauty of the photos on the “Places To See” calendar and the dreams they represent, the words “Before You Die” remains the biggest challenge. With the TV on in the background, Spartacus just pointed out, “Death comes to us all.” I’ve certainly been fortunate to get more time to see the world than many. It was disturbing on Facebook this morning to see the list of my high school classmates that have passed. Over 100 are no longer left to explore this earth, including ten that I considered good friends. Spartacus believed that he would be reunited with his murdered wife in the afterlife. I can only hope that there will be more time to travel and that these lost acquaintances will be part of it, even after I no longer exist to write this blog.