Part One
I am writing “The Trip of a Lifetime,” a rather ironic title that necessitates the phrase “so-called,” because the trip I have just endured to celebrate my 60th wedding anniversary almost killed me from exhaustion, stress, time changes, sea sickness, travel delays, unplanned troubles and horrifying expenses that just kept building up even after “full payment” was made.
Full payment. What a laugh. They must mean the shirt off your back to tip the last baggage helper before you reach home to collapse? On our celebration, (which was every bit as exhausting as our 60-year marriage,) I apparently complained so much during the trip to my son, Wake, that he texted back … “Mother, next time you plan a cruise just book a cabin on the Titanic and cut down on your misery.”
But so be it. It was settled. Cruise it was to be. One can’t celebrate 60 years of marriage with a trip to Saluda for a cheeseburger. One must do something special. A 60th wedding anniversary is a once in a lifetime milestone, not to be taken lightly.
The plan was to fly to NYC and board the Queen Mary, the world’s only true ocean liner, docked at pier 12 in Brooklyn and cruise across the north Atlantic to Southampton and then move on for a stay in London before flying home.
Travel is stressful for me and as I have grown older the stress is worse. But I didn’t want to tell my husband I would rather stay home. He has always wanted to visit Winston Churchill’s home in Kent, “Chartwell,” and who was I to say no to him after 60 years of marriage? Besides, he assured me he would take care of all the details and all I would have to do is relax and enjoy the trip.
I should have known better but a cruise sounded so blissful and I imagined…what John Masefield called “Sea Fever…” the majestic ship slicing through the white foam, the spray in my hair, a return to my forefather’s homeland, a return to the blessed land that was home for 1,000 years for a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon family known as Wakefield. (God knows where we came from before our millennium in England, perhaps up from Africa where all humanity originated, we are all connected to “Lucy,” and across the Med, up through the Iberian Peninsula, through what eventually became France and finally over the channel into the wilds of England?)
Yes, the romantic side of me was already hooked, indeed, I already felt tears sparking in my eyes, a la Thomas Hardy and his “Return of the Native,” as I thought of my forefathers and their great travails through all the invasions of England…. the Vikings, Romans, Normans, and the loss of property and freedom my people had suffered over the centuries and my pride today that we were survivors, as all of us alive today should be proud, that we had inherited genes of such strong ancestors.
I was concerned, however, perhaps the first little squiggle of worry crossed my brow, when I heard once we had booked the trip we could not make any changes without the “slight penalty” of $1,200. That did not seem slight to me.
And sure enough. No sooner had we paid for the trip and it had been cast in stone did transportation tsar, Pete Buttigieg, announce there were problems in flights scheduling the week of our departure. “So beware,” he warned. And that was when the stress began.
The problem was the ship left the dock at exactly 5 p.m. on Friday and the last moment one can check in was at 4 p.m. and our flight from Richmond was supposed to arrive in NYC at 1 p.m. with an hour needed to get to Brooklyn and I began to have nightmares that our flight would either be canceled or delayed and that we would miss our ship’s departure.
Several calls alarmed me further when I found out if you miss your ship, that was too bad, but if I was concerned I could accept the $1,200 slight penalty and rebook a flight the day before if I so desired and spend the night at a New York City Hotel and be assured I would be at the ship on time.
Meanwhile, as the days approached for our departure, hundreds of flights were being cancelled and there was no guarantee any flight would fly on schedule. I soon became what one might call a “nervous wreck.”
Finally, I could stand the stress no more and we booked two tickets on the train to Penn Station to arrive the day before the ship’s departure. It was only an extra several hundred dollars for the train tickets and another thousand for the hotel, meals in New York, transfers to hotel and ship, and tips to travel a day early.
This was my first realization that a traveler today is nothing but a piece of meat that anybody can take a big bite of as he or she passes by. By the time we returned from our trip of a lifetime I wondered. Would I look less like a lady and more like a chicken stripped to the bone?
©2023