"Little by little, one travels far." - J. R. R. Tolkien

　
One of my friends posted this quote on Facebook the other day and it really struck a chord with me.

There are all kinds of travels. We travel through life. We travel from place to place. We travel to work. We travel to play. Sometimes it is a spiritual journey sometimes physical. In a way all of life’s experiences are some type of journey or travel.

No matter how it happens, it takes one step after another or as Tolkien said, “little by little”.

At times I think about the twists and turns my life has taken that have brought me to this point and I sometimes wonder what if????

What if I hadn’t taken that job in Malden 30 years ago that moved me from rural upstate NY to a bustling suburb of Boston?

Or what if I’d married that high school sweetheart instead of pursuing a career…where would I be now?

What if I had that college degree instead of getting caught up in the unrest of the late 60’s and early 70’s?

Don’t misunderstand. I am not offering these musings because I regret where I’ve been ..no like the song My Way says, “Regrets? I’ve had a few…but then again…too few to mention…No I’m just recording and sharing my thoughts as they flow from the Tolkien quote. Free association I guess.

When I think of the quote in relationship to my passion for travel, I would have to say that my first baby steps were in coming east to live and then driving back and forth from NY to Boston on so many weekends. I spotted deer and wild turkeys and even drove through the bottom of a rainbow once. No pot of gold…just a lot of fog but I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell you that as I came down that hill and saw the rainbow going right down to the pavement, that I didn’t get a little thrill. I have to laugh at myself because the scientific side of me knew it would be fog but the little kid inside hoped it would be colored fog J

I took the “road less traveled” whenever I could…figuratively as well as physically. I was a property adjuster when it was a “man’s” field. Women stayed in the office and handled the injury claims. We didn’t pull on boots and slosh through water logged basements or climb ladders to check on the roofs and gutters. I investigated arsons and worked with real honest to goodness private detectives! No dull boring office job for me!

Like wise when I went “home” to NY to visit I liked to get in the car and just head west in the general direction of my destination, confident that eventually I would find something I recognized but until then I would see things I’d never passed by before.

I’d take the Mohawk Trail instead of the Mass.Pike or drive up through Vermont and head into NY from there. I crossed covered bridges and drove through little hamlets. I crossed over the river and through the wood and saw deep gorges and high mountains with scenic lookouts. And this was just in my own back yard. I remember on one drive that view opened up onto a little valley and there was the white church spire in the afternoon sun. It was the perfect picture post card scene of a New England hamlet.

Less than an hour from home and I was at the ocean and shore diving off Gloucester. If you can scuba dive in New England, diving in the warm tropics is a “day at the beach”. But New England Dives have their own charm. Maybe the visibility is limited - often less than 30 feet, and sure you can’t dive without at least a ¼ in. wet suit (even in summer) but when you are hanging there weightless and that jelly appears out of the murk and it’s just you and this alien creature…it’s amazing. That can’t happen in the tropics because the visibility is too good. It can only happen when you hang in a cloud of “nothingness”.

I loved to sit on a rock ledge with just the sound of my bubbles and I’d pick up sea urchins and open them with my dive knife to feed the fish. The fish weren’t afraid of me or my bubbles. A free lunch chased those fears right away!

All of these ‘little steps have influenced what and who I am…little by little, one travels far…I can only hope that I have many more steps to travel and many more places to see and experience before my journey is complete.