First trips

Until I was 15, the only traveling I did was to southern Indiana to visit relatives. My parents were the only ones in either of their families to leave Indiana, thus there was no one else to visit anywhere else. And far be it from my father to take a trip requiring us to stay in a motel. I liked Indiana ok. Both my grandparents lived on farms; so there were eggs to gather and creeks to wade in. Water was available by pumping -- which was exotic. And there were outhouses, which were not exotic.

When I was 10, my teacher read to us from Richard Haliburton's BOOK OF MARVELS, where the author describes his travel adventures through the world. I was enchanted and vowed to visit every place he did and became frustrated at my parents's unwillingness to go even to the Wisconsin Dells. Forget about Spain and India.

However, when I turned 15, I hit pay dirt. A colleague of my father's offered our family the use of his summer cottage on Dolphin Island, off the coast of Alabama. At last, I was underway.