But all that was in the past and it was now 1990, and it was time to have a good
family Christmas get-together, something we all deserved and missed since
Michael’s passing. I flew home to Seattle after visiting my friends in San Jose the
evening of December the 20th. Now, normally it would have been between 40
and 50 degrees and raining in Seattle but not this day. A rare Arctic blast had
blown in from the north the previous day bringing snow and ice to the area.
Now, snow in Seattle is not unheard of, it just is not usual. Since it is not usual, it
just is not cost effective to be as prepared for snow as people in the East and
Midwest. Also, the greater Seattle area is hilly, which causes a lot of problems
when mixed with snow, ice, and vehicles. Even if you are able to travel the roads
because you are experience at driving in snow, others cannot, so your travels
are made difficult by their inexperience. The only person in my family prepared
to drive the more than 150 miles from Seattle to the Pacific Coast in snow and ice
was me, for I had my four-wheel drive SUV.
With no end of the Arctic blast in sight, no one in the family felt comfortable
enough to drive to the ocean in such bad weather. Since we all couldn't fit in my
SUV we canceled the big family event at the ocean. And as it turns out it was a
good thing we canceled. Just two days before Christmas, in the early morning
hours, my mother's lung began to fill with blood.
The island paramedics rushed her to a waiting ferry boat to take her to the
hospital in Seattle where she was placed under observation in the emergency
unit. By the time my father and I arrived in Seattle the bleeding in her lung had
subsided. The attending physician was about to send her back home but
decided to perform one final test. While waiting for the test, her lung once again
began to bleed profusely. Again she coughed and choked on the blood as it
filled her lung.
She was whisked off to the surgical unit where doctors performed emergency
surgery. Since her regular lung surgeon was on Christmas vacation his stand-in
performed the surgery. You see, my mother had lung cancer in 1987. Her
cancer was detected early and she was currently in remission. She lost one
complete lung and half of the other to the cancer. She was lucky enough not to
lose her life. Just the past August however she was given a clean bill of health by
her oncologist. But now our family was suddenly faced with the possibility that
her cancer had returned and she would have another battle to fight.
My mother was hospitalized through Christmas and my father, my oldest sister,
and I stayed near her the whole time for the first couple of days. Christmas Day
came and instead of the planned big family get together we had a small gathering
in a hotel near the hospital. We tried to enjoy ourselves the best we could with
our mother lying near death in a hospital across the street.
My mom recovered quickly but the doctors were unsure why her lung bled. Her
CAT scan showed a mass in her lung confirming the doctor's suspicion of a
return of her cancer. The family, however, put their belief in the possibility that
the bleeding was just an abnormality of the lung surgery three years ago and not
a return of the cancer. All we could do is hope, pray, and wait.
Her regular surgeon returned from his Christmas vacation after the New Year.
He decided to hold off on surgery. Instead, his plan was to wait until the end of
the month, take a new CAT scan to compare with the Christmas CAT scan, and
decide what to do from there. The options consisted of the following: do nothing
if the mass had not changed or was not really there or remove the mass and
renew radiation and drug therapy if the mass was changed.
So, with this sudden change of events, I put my travel plans on hold until the
doctor cleared my mother of cancer. If she had cancer, my travel plans would be
put on hold indefinitely. But, to keep up my positive attitude I continued to plan
my trip to begin right after my mother's determining CAT scan.
In mid-January, a couple of co-workers from San Diego came to visit me and to
tour the Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia areas. By now the weather was
back to the normal: wet, cool and overcast. Driving was safe once again.
Shortly after my friends flew back to San Diego, the Iraqi defensive operation
Desert Shield suddenly but as promised became the offensive operation Desert
Storm. This only added to my family’s worries about my world adventure for now
air travel suddenly became a worrisome option with the added possibility of
terrorism. But I was not about to let some war and the threat of terrorism keep
me from going on my trip. Besides, I wouldn’t be flying to Europe and Asia until
after June and it was only January. They were predicting the war would be over
long before June. But, I did take a suggestion from my parents to think about
taking the train to my first destination instead of flying. So I guess Desert Storm
did make me re-evaluate my travel plans.
As mentioned before, my short term travel plan was to fly from Seattle to Boston
to visit my friend and former boss Teryl and her husband Greg for a couple of
weeks. I would then fly to Miami, buy a mountain bike there, and then fly on to
Jamaica to bike around the island for five months. After my tour of Jamaica I
would fly back to Miami and begin my Pan Am Around-the-World self conducted
tour.
To avoid flying, my mom and dad strongly suggested that I take the Trans-
Canadian train to the east coast instead. They had seen a film of the train trip on
television and thought the views it offered were spectacular. I checked into this
option and it was a great deal; thirty days to anywhere in Canada the train goes
with no preset itinerary for only $250 US. I changed my plans to now take the
Canadian train across the continent and then Amtrak from Boston to Florida.
While studying the train route I discovered the train would allow me to make some
unplanned visits. I could now visit my ex-coworker in Detroit, Michigan and
another ex-boss from General Dynamics who was now living in Syracuse, New
York. I also decided that since I had a thirty day pass I might as well travel to
Nova Scotia and see the Bay of Fundi, a place I’ve desired to visit since seeing
films of the bays tidal bore in grade school. Mom also suggested I visit her
cousin in Washington D. C. since the train was passing through there. So, my
plans were already changing and I hadn’t even left Seattle yet. But changing
plans were exactly what I expected on this trip. I knew that I could not expect to
travel around the world and know ahead of time exactly where I would be going,
exactly when I would be there, nor exactly how I would get there. I had no such
expectations. I was ready for changing plans. My attitude was pre-set to expect
changes.
The end of January finally came. The long awaited day for the results of my
mom's CAT scan had finally arrived. It was fine and once again her surgeon
gave her a clean bill of health. She was cancer free, the family was relieved and
I, I was by now more than ever ready to travel.
So I planned to begin my trip in only few days. I began to pack all of the things I
had been setting aside for the past few months to bring with me on my trip. Here
is the list:
- Cold weather clothes for the northern latitudes: a down jacket, a sweater,
snow boots, long underwear, gloves, and a woolen cap.
Warm weather clothes for the biking tour in Jamaica: shorts, tee-shirts, a
warm jacket with cap, and for the rain a rain suit.
A few biking accessories: a helmet and panniers.
Medical needs: cold medicines, lots of sun screen (I’m a very fair skinned
Norwegian-American), and many first aid items.
Sleeping bag.
Electronic toys: Compact Disk (CD) player with seven compact disks, a
Sharp Wizard Electronic Organizer (OZ-5500), a small 35mm camera, and
a light weight Canon 8mm mini-video camera.
world with my own eyes, not through some lens of a video camera. As it was, I
was also trying to minimize the weight I was carrying for my bike trip. But my
sister insisted I bring the camera so the family could see what I was seeing. I
agreed to bring it only as far as Norway and then I would send it home.
I brought the compact 35mm camera however to take some still photos and in a
bit of extravagance I decided to bring my Walkman CD player so I would have
some music to listen to while touring Jamaica by myself.
The last piece of electronic gadgetry I brought was a Sharp Electronic Organizer
- the Wizard. An electronic organizer is a hand held calculator sized computer
which allows you to keep telephone book information on 100’s of persons, lists of
items (I had a list of all of the things I needed to bring with me; a list of all of the
places I was going, etc.), and it has calendar functions up until the year 2040
(you can set alarms for special dates). It also has a clock and it calculates the
current time of the city you are in as well as the time of your home city. It was
perfect for this type of traveling. I spent many hours typing in all of my personal
and business contact information and anniversary and birthday information.
(hey, I know today you all know about such electronic gadgets but back in 1990
not many people knew of these things).
It was now time to pack all of the items on my lists. I packed everything I needed
in Jamaica into a hard suitcase. I packed the things I needed on the train (food,
electronic gadgets, gloves, and a cap) into a large soft carrying bag. The video
camera had a pack of its own and I had a backpack with my wallets, traveler's
cheques, and other miscellaneous items. I was carrying two wallets. One was a
normal wallet and it had a bit of cash, my VISA card, and several airlines frequent
traveler cards whereas the other one was a travel wallet. The travel wallet I could
wear under my clothes and it carried my passport and other important items.
Finally, I carried my sleeping bag in a duffel bag.
I was now ready to meet the world. First major stop - Jamaica. Tropical warm,
lush Jamaica sure sounds great when it's rainy, cold and overcast outside, as it
normally was in the Pacific Northwest. But Jamaica had to wait, for first I was off
on a four day transcontinental train ride from Vancouver to Toronto with stops to
follow in Detroit, Syracuse, Nova Scotia, Boston, Washington D. C., and Miami.
| 1.1-2 Introduction |
World Turned Upside Down
Music - Let It Snow!
by Dean Martin
by Dean Martin