This Summer – Travel For the Moments

We speak often of life changing moments: The day you get married or you have your first child. The loss of a parent, the ill prognosis for a friend. Usually we speak of them in the past tense. The moment has happened. The effect of the moment is what we have left and in the processing of it we can point to that moment when it happened and recognize it for what it was.  A moment when everything changed.

I’m in a different position this summer.

I’m poised to take on what I know will be one of the most interesting summers of my life. I can see and sense that what awaits is the stuff forever memories are made of.

It’s happening in stages and I’ll share it with you here as it happens and in various magazines, newspapers and outlets over the months to come. But it is a weird thing to know in advance, to feel it in my bones, that I’m about to be affected.

First is the seemingly simple trip I have planned this week. A girls’ weekend with friends and colleagues in New York City. (You can follow along online on Twitter at #NYCGirls). I’m not a girly girl and the group I’m traveling with is a mix of shopaholics, history buffs, up-for-anythings and all around great people. The trip, which has turned into a bit of an annual escape, is meant to refuel our tanks. We’re all mothers and a weekend together doing the things women do when they get together without worrying about others has proven to be well worth the trip in previous years. We’re staying at The Peninsula hotel on 5th Avenue, taking in the award-winning Kinky Boots play and spending more time than I can even begin to imagine in the famed shopping outlet Century21. I expect to come home from that trip with heavier bags – in my arms and under my eyes – and plenty of memories of both the shareable and never-to-be-discussed-again kind. It will be fun.

The beautiful lobby at the Peninsula NYC

No more than 48 hours later I’ll be on route to a completely different experience. For a week I’ll be exploring the forests of Rwanda. Specifically, my trip will take me to the Virunga Lodge run by Volcanoes Safari where I’ll (fingers crossed) come within seven feet of the gorillas that call the forests  home. While I’m excited to see the majestic beasts up close, I’m even more excited to witness first-hand the huge strides that the country has made since Tribal Genocide ripped it apart (to the tune of more than 800,000 murders) only 20 years ago. I remember the genocide from the news events of the time. I remember the massacre from the movie that has kept it at the centre of my nightmares ever since. But I also remember the work I did with Right to Play and the tales of survival and forgiveness that emerged from that experience. To have the chance to meet the people who have survived and thrived in spite of the unthinkable gives me chills. It will be inspiring.

At the end of June,  I’ll hop another plane. This time Ish and the boys will join me as we do something we’ve wanted to do ever since we left British Columbia and set off on our around the world trip in the summer of 2011. We’ll spend more time in that breathtaking province. A two-week road trip will include stops in Osoyoos (Canada’s only desert!), Tofino (surf and sips!), Vancouver (Foodies unite!) and Whistler (Mountain action in full effect!). We’ll also spend time on the Rocky Mountaineer before doing the one part of our round the world trip that was planned but never realized – Seattle, Washington and hopefully, Portland, Oregon.  It will be time with the family I’ve missed so much since we came home and fell back in line with “normal life.” I can’t wait to have them to myself again. It will be heart-filling.

Looking forward to picking up where we left off in British Columbia.

And so that’s what I have to offer you so far this summer. Fun, inspirational, heart-filling stories. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

What about you? Big summer plans?