As a girl my experience with travel consisted of visiting grandparents. Fortunately my maternal grandparents lived in eastern Montana, unfortunately, eastern Montana was 8 hours away. My paternal grandmother, however, lived in Missouri, 3 days away. We made annual trips to Wolf Point and triennial visits to Missouri. Despite these low budget, no frills vacations, I developed a love of travel. Also, one of the cheap entertainments when I was growing up was going for a drive, mostly on Sunday afternoons. This was especially enticing because Dad often stopped for a treat like pie or ice cream before we headed back home. By the time I was in high school I was so infected by the travel bug that I wanted to be a truck driver. The main difficulty with that plan was that I had never driven a stick shift and few 18 wheelers are automatic.
One of the last jobs I had before leaving my home in Missoula was at Brownie's Motel. Though being a motel maid was not the glamorous part of the travel industry, I felt second hand excitement as our equally nonglamorous customers came and went from our nonglamorous hotel. My goal for adulthood was to be in a hotel long enough to unpack, not just spend the night and leave the next morning. I had little expectation that my travel dreams would ever come true, so I kept that wish deep inside and almost forgot about it--but God didn't.
We made a few trips while our children we young, Canada, Mt. Rushmore, Oregon, but the dream trips began after Reed started working for Semitool. Traveling with the airplanes when they went out of state for maintenance was part of his job as aircraft mechanic; sometimes we were able to accompany him. Our first experience with corporate travel was going to Tulsa. We flew there in one of the company jets and we stayed at an Embassy Suites. I walked into the hotel's arboretum with its lush plants, glass elevators and the grand piano that was played during the nightly receptions, trying unsuccessfully not to stare open mouthed. I was overwhelmed. I never expected to set foot in such a nice hotel, much less stay there for two weeks. In fulfillment of my childhood dream, we unpacked our suitcases. Our kids slept in the bedroom with the two queen beds, we slept on the hide-a-bed in the livingroom. It was worth it to have the privacy, and Reed's stirrings in the morning getting ready for work wouldn't disturb the children. After the hot breakfast that came with the room, the kids would swim in the morning. In the afternoon I would take them to the zoo, museum or some other activity in town. So much for driving my semi to the Super 8 dreams; God had bigger plans.
By this point in my life I have made many such trips, most of those without our children. I like to stay in "lotion" grade hotels. Any hotel will provide soap and shampoo, a higher class will also provide lotion and breakfast but beware, really high class hotels offer everything but charge you extra for it. When Reed was on the Falcon jet advisory board, we stayed at resorts so classy I was afraid to sit on the bed or put on the robe for fear of getting charged their "nominal" fee. Their idea of nominal was $10, mine was ten cents.
It took me a while to realize that God had remembered my childhood dream and upgraded it exponentially. He had looked into the forgotten depths of my heart and brought deep, but unnecessary joy to my life. One look at creation shows us God is in the business of making things not just functional but beautiful. Together Reed and I have seen wonderful places, England, Hawaii, Springfield, well maybe Springfield wasn't wonderful, but it is enough for me to get time away from the dreary winter, or away from the routine of work and errands, to have time to read, think and write long blogs like this. But I'd better finish this, I've got places to go.
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