We were privileged to ride on the inside of the train.

Florencia and I traveled to India together some 30 years ago. Our motto was “Is the sun over the yard arm yet?’ Meaning is the time of day such that we can we drink the white wine (her favorite) from the mini-bar? Talk about a traveling companion par excellence—she was.

We didn’t always have access to a mini-bar as we hit an ashram where we bought our own mattress and slept on a cement floor, but we took advantage of whatever opportunities came our way.

I saw her yesterday after a 25 year separation.

She was in an “Assisted Living” establishment after having suffered a heart attack and a stroke. She was recovering and funny as ever. She told me that at an earlier home, when the owners heard that she was a Yoga instructor asked if she would teach a class. Well, she had to adjust the postures so the participants could sit in chairs, as they couldn’t get up from the floor, but then, neither could she. She whispered to a participant to assist her, the lady looked into her eyes and said, “Anheuser-Busch.”

Doesn’t that make you wonder what the question was?

Florencia said one item on her bucket list was going to Machu Picchu, which she did. Did you know there are pills to take to prevent altitude sickness? I didn’t—a must to investigate. Florencia added to her adventures: a ride on houseboat up the Amazon, and a cruise with the teacher Abraham to the Mexico Riveria.

What a woman!

Which brings me to travel, and finding Jeff Goin’s blog and this post:

3 Reasons to Travel While You’re Young

by Jeff Goins | 635 Comments | Twitter, Facebook, Google+

The other night, I had a conversation with a young woman who had a number of decisions ahead of her, one of which was whether she should go to grad school or travel the world.

I told her to travel. Hands down. No excuse. Just go.

She sighed.

“Yeah, but…”

Never were more fatal words spoken.

Yeah, but… what about debt?
Yeah, but… what about my job?
Yeah, but… what about my boyfriend (or dog or car or whatever)?

“Yeah, but…” is pernicious. Because it makes it sound like we have the best of intentions when really we are just too scared to do what we should.

I could probably come up with 100 reasons to travel while you’re old.

Number one is, “Stack it in while you still can.”

I love to travel, and wish to do it again. Wouldn’t traveling and writing about it be just the best? I dream of being the next Charles Kurult (On the Road with Charles Kuralt), that is not writing a travel log, such as I went there and saw that, but rather writing about people, places, events.

Kurult didn’t write about politics or how bad the world was getting. He wrote about people, and such events such as the “Ugly Trucks of Pelican Rapids.”

There in Pelican Rapids trucks with a few hundred thousand miles on their odometers, rust on their chassis, broken windshields, and small trees growing out of the cracks of their truck beds, are prized by their owners who would never think of turning in their ugly trucks for shiny new models.

Hey, we had such a truck in Hawaii.