A Tour Guide Is Born!

Many years ago I had the opportunity to travel with my father to Greece. This was the first trip he had taken since Alzheimer’s interfered with my mother’s ability to travel. My image had been to sail the Greek Isles and lay on the beautiful, sandy beaches. What an image that was in my mind!


My father and I are adventurous souls, so when we boarded our ship and set sail through the Aegean Sea, we decided to do many of the excursions. My image of sunbathing on the Greek Isles soon faded into something very different. I had to do an attitude adjustment, and when I did the trip was amazing. Instead of sunbathing at each port, we traipsed through the ancient ruins, learning much about a civilization so old it would have been equivalent to 30 or more generations before us.

My father, even then, was a little hard of hearing. I became an instant tour guide. It was really quite funny and entertaining. I would listen to the tour guide and then repeat to my dad the main points that the tour guide shared. I think it was on this trip that I truly became fascinated with history and visiting places in person to learn all I could about a country, its culture, its story, and its people. As I would recap the main points for my dad, all of a sudden my audience grew – by leaps and bounds! It seemed that many people at the back of the crowd had difficulty hearing, so they were enjoying their “audience participation” with their adopted tour guide…me!

It reminded me of a time years earlier when my friend Mary and I traveled, camping, along the Blue Ridge parkway. We had visited a cavern with stalagmites and stalactites and Mary volunteered me for the tour guide when they asked someone from the group to help out! I guess I am a natural born tour guide! I certainly have fun learning and sharing, especially through travel!