Traveling … And Forgiving Circumstances Beyond My Control.

I usually travel solo, but this time my dear wife will be joining me. She was born and raised here in Hawaii and is always reluctant to leave. She doesn’t like leaving her two horses. Or our granddaughter. Oh, yes… and she hates cold weather.

Many years back – our daughter was about seven at the time – the three of us took a trip to Europe. I had done the planning, which took weeks. We would be gone for most of May, starting with England and France, then overnight by train to Vienna, followed by Budapest and Prague. When I was finally satisfied with the details, I presented the itinerary to my wife.

She studied it carefully for several minutes. Finally she looked up and, fixing me with a penetrating stare, cut right to the chase: “But will it be cold?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll be there in May … balmy days … flowers in bloom … mothers strolling with their children in the parks… Paris in the Spring!”

Buried somewhere in the family archives is a 35 mm slide … a photo taken in the lobby of our Paris hotel on that trip. My wife and daughter are staring directly at the camera and holding up a copy of Le Figaro, one of the daily newspapers in Paris. The headline, in huge black type, is just one word:

FROID!

(Cold!)

The sub-head reads:

Record du Siècle!

(A record for the century!)

I have reassured my wife that we will not run into that kind of weather during our forthcoming trip. I mean, how cold can it possibly get?  In August?  In Canada?  In the Rocky Mountains?