I’m sitting at the Logan International Airport in Billings, Montana. The Skywest plane that will transport me to Salt Lake City has arrived on time at 2:22 p.m. As I look out at the smoky sky (from Canadian fires) and the brown landscape, I imagine what scenes await me in France.
This is my first trip away from the North American continent. This trip is one I have dreamed of since college more than 20 years ago. Life got in the way of my French fantasies. College, marriage, work, a baby, divorce, single-parenthood, cheering on my softball playing daughter every summer for seven years, grad school…all of these came first. These were the choices I made, which I don’t regret, yet somewhere along the way I lost a piece of me. What happened to the girl who wanted to speak French and paint and travel the globe? She’s living in suburban Montana with a house, a mortgage, an SUV, two dogs and a cat and a fish and her daughter now in college.
It’s amazing for me to realize that I will be in France. And not just static in France – I will be flying into Paris, taking a train to Bordeaux, riding my bike across the country to Grenoble, and then will take the train back to Paris.
A ten hour flight awaits as do a madcap journey from plane to train to hotel with my bulky luggage and bike case. (The photo above is at the Salt Lake City gate to Paris!)
This is my first trip away from the North American continent. This trip is one I have dreamed of since college more than 20 years ago. Life got in the way of my French fantasies. College, marriage, work, a baby, divorce, single-parenthood, cheering on my softball playing daughter every summer for seven years, grad school…all of these came first. These were the choices I made, which I don’t regret, yet somewhere along the way I lost a piece of me. What happened to the girl who wanted to speak French and paint and travel the globe? She’s living in suburban Montana with a house, a mortgage, an SUV, two dogs and a cat and a fish and her daughter now in college.
It’s amazing for me to realize that I will be in France. And not just static in France – I will be flying into Paris, taking a train to Bordeaux, riding my bike across the country to Grenoble, and then will take the train back to Paris.
A ten hour flight awaits as do a madcap journey from plane to train to hotel with my bulky luggage and bike case. (The photo above is at the Salt Lake City gate to Paris!)
Total miles: 40
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