One of the really neat things about group travel is you'll never know when something you may see or do on a tour will trigger your thoughts to an event or item from your past.
Case in point. Yesterday, July 9 was the Travel Masters' "Meet, Greet & Eat" event at The Wooden Spoon in Gentry Arkansas. This monthly get-together allows members of the Travel Masters to socialize, talk about past and future tours and have a bit of lunch. (Ok. Insert commercial plug, here. The Wooden Spoon is one of our favorite local eating establishments in the area. The food is delicious, the restaurant is always clean, there's a family atmosphere throughout and the service is superb.) On our recent Mystery tour (see previous Blogs) one of our stops was in Alton, Illinois, the birthplace of one Robert Pershing Wadlow. Who's he? Only the tallest man who walked the earth, all 8 feet 11.5 inches of him. There's a life-sized statue of him in a park where the school he once attended stood.
One of our travelers, let's call her Dolly, remembered that her mother once met Robert Wadlow when he visited Northwest Arkansas in the 1930's. She got a postcard photograph of him standing alongside of his father. It was the kind of postcard that one used to find at arcades or fairs, or in my case, on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, New Jersey during my youth. She took the card up to Robert and he graciously signed the back of the card for her. She kept that card for years before passing it along to her daughter. Dolly had long since forgotten about the card until the day she stood face to knee with the statue of Robert Wadlow on our Mystery Tour's visit to Alton.
When she got home she decided to see if that card was still around. It was. Hidden away with other assorted items long ago placed in a box for safe-keeping. She retrieved it and brought it to our Meet, Greet & Eat to share with the group.
This is one of those fascinating moments that traveling with a group, our group, lends itself to: making new memories and oftentimes rekindling old memories. So, get off the couch and Come Join the Fun! You'll never know what lies ahead.
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