Loch Ness on a backpacking trip in 1998 (I think).
My brother’s coming down to visit me today!
Wherever I have lived, John has made at least one appearance to either help me move or help in some other previously unrealized fashion. From driving with me across the country this past spring to sweeping all of the monkey pods off of the roof of my house in Hawaii because he thought it would be a nice thing to do, I feel incredibly lucky to have him as a brother.
This morning I was trying to think of the first time that he came out to see me, happy to be dragged around without a real itinerary or entertainment schedule. I think the first time was my freshmen year of college, where he boarded a bus to see what life was like in Burlington. A few months later my father was pulling him out of school so that he could fly over to Europe by himself and meet up with me to backpack. At that point I’m pretty sure he was 14, but age never really was an indicator of his maturity. That said, we still came across a few reminders of our relative youth as other “old” twentysomethings on similar backpacking adventures would poll us for our ages or look around to wonder where our chaperones went.
After traveling through France and boarding a ferry to Ireland, we hitched a ride on a lorry headed to Dublin. Once settled in the clean but gritty youth hostel, John shows me a “souvenir” that he picked up from the ferry: a hand towel with an inscription of a shamrock and the words ‘Irish Ferries’. I laughed as dug into my own backpack to show him that I had procured the same souvenir. Anyone who had ever gone to my house as a kid would understand the significance of this. My father is a retired airline pilot, and as a result our bathroom not only had boxes of mini soaps, shampoos, shower caps, and shoe shine kits, but also very nice bathroom towels that bore the marks of Sheraton, Marriott, Dhahran International Airport, etc. So it should come as no surprise that my brother and I picked up the same pilfering habits, and had each individually raided our at-sea cabin during the ferry ride for something Dad would be proud of.
Anyways, there are many stories but I need to get to the airport. It should be a fun weekend. No stealing planned this time, just hockey, hiking and most likely some moving of stuff in preparation for my move to Senegal. One thing about my brother that has never changed- he doesn’t ask for much but if you show him just a little bit of loyalty or consideration, there’s nothing that he won’t do for you.
Blurry and hard to understand what’s going on here? Well that just about captures our cross-country road trip this past April!