Down By The Berry Patch

"Travel and Trips"

Julia A. Berg

I don't think we traveled as a family when I was younger. But my parents did encourage me to travel when I could. I remember my mother always saying, "You and Lorain should do more traveling. Do more while you can do it together." She traveled the world over — but only after my dad died of cardiac arrest at age fifty. She always said she would have liked to travel with him.

Mother and Daddy saw to it that I had travel opportunities while at home. Mother, also, saw to it that Steve and Christopher traveled. When they were in high school, she took our son took Steve to England; she took Christopher to California. I do wish that I had traveled more with her.

As I let my memories stray back, I did do a lot of traveling from high school age on.

• I went to Oklahoma with my grandparents to visit Uncle Stan Sokolowski. Grandma Wilcox went on to California where my Aunt Naoma Haynes was due to have a baby. Grandma died in California, so for years I had a memory of travel related to death.

• When I was a sophomore in high school, I took my first plane trip, by myself, to visit my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack Hicks who were stationed at an army base in Massachusetts.

• As a senior in high school, I went on our class trip to Chicago, Illinois.

• Soon after high school graduation, Lorain and his mother drove across the county to California to visit Richard and Ardella who were stationed at an army base.

• After Steve was born, we took a trip to Fort Benning, Georgia, to visit Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack Hicks.

• When Steve and Christopher were young, we took a ten day trip to Iowa to visit my sister, Rita VanDerVoort and her family. We camped along the way.

• When Steve, Christopher, and Mike were young we did a lot of camping taking two particularly memorable trips. One was to Washington D.C. with Nan Vader as a baby sitter and guest.

• Another was a three week trip where we started out to go to the World Fair in Montreal, Canada. When folks retuning from there would meet us along the way they would tell of the long waiting lines of people; we changed our focus and went to Boston, Vermont to Birds Eye Mountain , and Connecticut to Mystic Sea Port — and along much of the North Eastern Sea Coast. Cousin, Sally Liberacki went along to help baby sit.

• We took a wonderful family trip to Colorado to visit Jay and Elaine Liberacki and they took us on many places throughout the state — ghost towns, mountains, and more.

• When working at Camp Nebagamon for Boys in Wisconsin, we traveled over much of Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as across all the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

• We went to much of Minnesota at other times to go to Mayo Clinic in the southern part of the state and to visit my cousin, Jay Liberacki in the northern part of the state near Minneapolis.

• When Mike was working as a licensed hunting guide in Idaho, we drove out to get him seeing many sites on the way. We had a wonderful time riding horses up the mountains to a campsite, fishing in the streams, and seeing a lot of wildlife. Then we visited Yellowstone National Park and The Grand Tetons in Wyoming, Mt. Rushmore in North Dakota and many other places on our way home.

• We spent three weeks in Florida visiting with Aunt Helen and Uncle Swede Kent. Actually, we used their place for sleeping and for breakfast. We traveled the state visiting other friends and seeing the sites; Cape Canaveral, Busch Gardens, and more. And every night we played euchre with our aunt and uncle.

• When Mike and Janice were planting trees in Alabama, we went to see them and visited with cousins Ralph and Margaret Wilcox — and much of the other Wilcox clan. Mother went with us on this trip. We also spent a few days in New Orleans, Louisiana , while we were there.

• I went to California at least four times to see Christopher when he was living out there. Lorain went a couple of times. One year we were there over Christmas and that was our first December in a warm climate. It was strange to attend church in the morning in 80 degree weather and follow this up with a trip to Venice Beach. Three of my trips to California, some time was spent attending CPSI and IDEA week long institutes — creative problem solving and expansion of ideas (thinking outside the box). Maybe my favorite place in California is Pasadena where Christopher and I visited the Norton Simon and Huntington Museums and enjoyed "high tea" in the rose gardens. We also went to Disney Land and watched the floats for the Rose Bowl parade when under construction in Pasadena.

• We spent about 14 Easters visiting Richard and Ardella, Lorain's brother, in places such as New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina. One year, Mother traveled with us when we visited them when they lived at West Point. We toured there, too.

• We visited Aunt Naoma and Uncle Bill Haynes in Texas. We mailed 35 pounds of old pictures ahead of time and went there to spend 2 weeks trying to identify the photos — plus traveled over much of Texas from San Antonio to Houston.

• For Quilt related functions and seminars, I traveled to Drummond Island for the Michigan Quilt Preservation Committee Study Group; Maine and Kentucky for the American Quilt Study Group conferences; Ohio for a conference; Indiana a couple of times and Shipshawana to the Hall of Fame conventions; Nashville, Tennessee, to view exhibits; Colorado to Estes Park for a conference on Quit Appraisal. And for all of these, we always had additional planned tours to see the surrounding area.

• A week in New Hampshire with Richard and Ardella, Ron and Carol Bostic at a "high end" fishing cabin called The Bess offered opportunity to see the homes and graves sites of many famous/known writers, as well as fish trout on a private lake.

• When Mike was working in New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina, we went to see him. We saw the devastation caused in the areas of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

• I was in Poland twice. Once I went with my sister, Rita Luks, for two weeks with a mission group to teach English to Polish teenagers. While there, we visited relatives. Dad was born in Poland and we stayed at the home where he was born, saw the church where he was baptized. The second time in Poland, our grandson, Alex, Lorain and I went and stayed with Agneiska Kloc (Abi, our summer daughter) for 10 days and traveled the whole country on a trip planned by Abi's mother, Grace. We have some good scrap books/ photo albums of these trips.

• Lorain, Steve, Mike, Janice, Alex, and I went to China for a week and saw many places. Steve taught a class at Beijing University while we were there. Walking on the Great Wall was certainly a highlight. We have a great scrap book of this trip.

• Steve, Lorain, Mike, Janice, Alex, and I went to Thailand and had a wonderful time in this beautiful country. Trip scrapbooks tell of our journey.

• Since we have a condominium in Arizona, we traveled cross country to get there year after year. Some of our favorite spots out there are Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Beautiful country. We also made a number of trips into Mexico. Again, we have scrapbooks of our time there.

• There were many trips to Stratford and Toronto, Canada, to see plays. Going to Toronto, we took the train. We would drive to Stratford. Many weeks and many good times were spent there with plays and hunting for antiques.

• We spent many vacations at Atlantic Beach in North Carolina with Richard and Ardella, brother and sister-in-law, at their time share. Trips around the area were fascinating — especially the old cemeteries.

• A trip to Indiana to visit Alex in Indianapolis, Indiana was great and he drove us around the surrounding area to see many covered bridges — something I wanted to see for years.

• A trip to San Diego, California, to visit Rick Henrickson was marvelous. He was an excellent host , drove us to see everything in the area, and took us to eat a variety of available foods — eating along the seacoast was a thrill.

• Not many states we have not visited in the USA. Maybe some day we will even get to Alaska and Hawaii. Who knows? Mike, Janice, and Alex spent two months in Alaska, camping, hiking, fishing, and sight seeing along the way. What wonderful pictures Janice took and put a slide show together that we can view on the computer screen. They refer to this as "Alex's Graduation Trip".

• I would not want to leave out all the great places and trips we have taken in Michigan: ski resorts, The Homestead, sand dunes, Holland for the Tulip Festival, upper peninsula to see many water falls, Soo Locks, Mackinaw Island for the Lilac Festival, Greenfield Village, Henry Ford Museum, International Museum, all through Lansing to the State Capitol and more, Cherry Festival in Traverse City, to all the great lakes and more. Michigan is a beautiful state with much to see.

• And then there are the many planetariums we have visited and enjoyed around the country. This takes us to a whole new universe — the wide open sky and all that is beyond. Will I ever travel into space? Probably not. But I don't doubt that some future generations of my family will get there. My, what opportunities lie ahead!

  We have had many travel opportunities for which I am very thankful.

  Now that I have cancer, I have been unable to travel for over three years, but I have all these wonderful memories from which to draw. And as I look out my windows and get ready with another book titled A View from my Window: 360 Degrees, I am very content and feel very blessed. Just looking out my windows daily seems like a travel adventure. I love hearing others tell of their trips; love having them show me pictures they took along the way. I enjoy reading and lose myself in "travel of the written word." I love life and all the opportunities it holds!

  Again, I feel blessed beyond reason.

  — June 2007