Pat Bean's blog

Aging My Way

Steinbeck named his mode of travel, a camper created from a pickup truck, Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse, and I named my small RV Gypsy Lee for the wanderlust in my genes and a grandfather who loved to travel, or so I was told as he died when I was only two years old.

On most best travel book lists that I come across, I’ve read at least half of them – and I copy down the names of the ones I haven’t and check them out. Age has slowed down my physical road trips, but reading books about travel continues to warm my wanderlust soul.

I was pretty young when I started reading books by John Steinbeck, (1902-1968). Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, I loved; Of Mice and Men, not so much. But my favorite Steinbeck book is Travels with Charley, so much so that I gave Steinbeck credit for being one of the inspirations for my own travels, and titled my travel book, Travels with Maggie. Charley was a large French poodle, and Maggie was a bratty cocker spaniel.

Steinbeck and I looked at this country from different viewpoints, and I learned much from him. I would like to think that if he could have read my book, he would have learned from me, too. As I’ve noted before, one of the best things about reading is seeing the world from another’s perspective.

Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite travel quotes from another one of my favorite authors: Edward Abbey. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.