La Vida Roja with Crazy Red

Crazy Red

Mr. Smithers, my Golden Retriever, and I are waiting on a double short cappuccino outside of a Starbucks in Amarillo, Texas, this afternoon. He is ready to go home.

When I was asked today by my Beloved which I preferred, our treks up the Eastern portion or the Southwestern portion of the USA, I couldn't make a choice. I have loved it all. Whether it was seeing the snow fly on top of a mountain in July in the Smoky Mountains, the Grand Canyon for the very first time, or coincidentally being in the Black Hills during the middle of the week of the Sturgess Harley Davidson Motorcycle rally, I have loved every minute of it. Believe me, driving through the Black Hills on the way to Mount Rushmore takes on a completely different vibe with the sound of hundreds of Harley's down shifting all around you. We met the nicest couple from California at the KOA that week and have been corresponding and trading Christmas gifts with them ever since.

Then there was Robert and Florence. We met them in Paris last December at Chez Denise. We were seated at the same table, I struck up a conversation and by the end of the evening the four of us had agreed to have dinner again the next night. We were returning home and they to Lyon the day after that. We had a wonderful evening. Later, on the street outside of their hotel, Florence saw Catherine Deneuve smoking a cigarette in an outdoor cafe. We spent the next ten minutes trying to capture ourselves on film with Catherine in the background. What a great way to spend a last night in Paris. That is what traveling is about for me. Meeting people you would never meet otherwise, seeing the things you would never see. Whether it is on the prescribed list of tourist destinations such as the Louvre or the World's Largest Ball of String, or seeing something magical and unexpected like snow on a mountain in the middle of the summer. Some of my friends will only travel together in groups of 3 to 6 couples that all know each other and, while I have been on those tours on occasion and had fun, I think they are missing the point. Seldom was their any interaction with the people of the places we visited and what little interaction that did occur was often viewed through a prism that was reaffirmed (and not always for the better) by the people I was traveling with. Okay, maybe the rest of the group didn't interact, but I sure as hell did. There was the lovely visit I had with the museum security guard at Les Invalides while he taped my camera back together after I accidentally dropped it on Napoleon's Tomb. Or the evening spent doing Munchkin imitations for the two adorable little British moppets who charmed me out of my crackers (not the saltine variety, the exploding when you pull the strings during a celebration variety) at a New Years Eve celebration in England. Then there was the little old lady in Wales who grabbed my hands and pulled my 5'6 ½ foot frame down to her 4 foot eye level, looked at my hair and said with great feeling “the Gaelic blood is very strong and is not to be denied”. I don't know what she meant by that. She had been listening to my Texas twang all the way up the mountain on that backwards train (you know Red, she will talk to you). I even had told her quite pointedly when she asked that I am a mutt genetically speaking as are so many of us here in the good old US of A. Then her daughter appeared and I could hear her mutter to her mother as she led her away a warning against talking to strange redheaded women from Texas while in the ladies room at the top of Mount Snowdon. I hope she remembered me, I sure remember her. Okay, this is the last, and I mean the LAST installment of “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”... Crazy Red is: Still Crazy
Still Red
and Almost home

— Crazy Red
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© 2008 Crazy Red

Simon and Garfunkel perform ``America"

Simon and Garfunkel perform ``Homeward Bound"