In my quest to figure out my direction as a writer and blogger one thing has always been constant: my desire to become a travel and food writer. As a flight attendant I traveled on my own to many countries and continents to see the world. But once I went back to school and had a child at the same time, traveling took not only a back seat but another whole dimension. Travel writers weren’t in demand and I didn’t really know how to break into the area. Plus there’s this other little dark secret: I was intimidated to travel with an infant. In fact my son has only been on an airplane twice in his four short years, really quite sad if you ask me.

But here’s the thing, I believe strongly in visiting other countries besides the one you live in. However, I somehow found myself too comfortable in my day-to-day routine to venture out and take a stand-by seat with my son and husband in tow. At least I was until my conversation two weeks ago with my good friend (and also former flight attendant) Elizabeth. My “plinky” answer sparked her comment on my blog about travel and the importance of children experiencing other cultures and places.

Travel is a form of education and parents need to make financial planing for travel as much a priority as education and college. We are a global economy and learning about the other global players is key to developing a successful future. Parents need to take time to research, as a family,  places to go, what to do while there and if the kids are old enough have them take part in planning  the budget for the trip. All of these skills are real world skills,

But I’m sort of a throw back hippie/surfer (did I mention I grew up in Bisbee?) wrapped up in a modern, high tech bag of over achieving thoughts mixed up with my old school values. And so I see travel as a way to just be. But to learn from it too, learn what the locals do, where they go, what they think, become a local if you can and then just experience life as it comes to you. It’s the Zen side of travel that needs to exist. So when my friend, Jen, offered us her friends’ house to watch, and to look after Albert the unsinkable goldfish, we said “Hell yes” that, and it was 115 degrees in Phoenix.

I realized my long time purpose/goal or whatever you want to call it, is my desire to show Henry the world. To let him see it with his own two eyes, to come to his own conclusions of what he likes or dislikes about certain places or experiences. Which is what propelled me to bust out of my own confinement and shovel a disarray of clothes into a too small suitcase with my  toothbrush solidly embedded between my teeth to fly to San Francisco on a 7:45 a.m. flight.  I raced my family to the airport unprepared (hippie/surfer) to hop on the flight. Didn’t happen. Didn’t have all my ducks set up the night before.

But we decided to eat breakfast and wait for another flight. The surfer was rubbing off on all of us and we chilled and laughed while we ate a decent breakfast at the Home Turf Bar (they don’t have an online menu – I don’t understand this), anyway the food was good actually. Eggs and toast for Henry & Paul. Fruit and yogurt for me. I’ll give it this: it was fresh and good.

Needless to say we did NOT make it on the flight, so we left and ran errands. Got back in time to make the 1:15 flight.

Henry’s first subway ride was good, he enjoyed putting his mouth on every hand rail and seat back he could find. Paul was starting to OCD on washing Henry’s hands after every object he touched but I said let’s just attack the biggest battle, “Henry, KEEP YOUR MOUTH OFF OF EVERYTHING!’ after a while the message sunk in and I think we only had to disinfect his mouth half a dozen times… k not really.