If you’re anything like me, when you’re traveling a great distance, you stop at rest areas to take a break from driving, use the facilities, or maybe get a candy bar out of the snack machine. And just inside the door generally you’ll find a rack or two (sometimes three or four, or sometimes a whole room) of different pamphlets devoted to and promoting the scenic wonders of the area, places to eat, sleep, shop, recreate, and visit.
It doesn’t make any difference what town Don and I are driving through, I have to check out the entire rack just in case I miss the greatest things to do in the area or county or state. Even if we’re just passing through one state and not even stopping, I’ve got to pull those pamphlets out of their nice cozy slots and take them back to the car where I peruse them and then toss them on the floor of the back seat.
At the end of whatever trip we’ve taken, as we clean out the car, I stack up all those pamphlets and usually toss 80% of them in the recycle bin. So why do I take them when, clearly, I may never be back in that area? I guess it’s my way of saying to myself that maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn something from reading the pamphlets and hopefully we’ll be back to explore the area and I need to be prepared.
I pick up camping brochures, restaurant, museum and shopping cards, pamphlets with pictures of beautiful waterfalls and majestic nature tours, lakes where you can swim or hike around. And don’t forget the wax museum and weird art display, the chocolate factory and symphony music hall. I also pick up brochures on car museums, of course, and anything related to cars for Don. The list goes on and on. Now, admit it: You’ve picked up a few pamphlets yourself.
Right now I have a stack sitting on my desk that I haven’t gone through since we got home from Arizona. Plus there’s an even bigger stack on a shelf in the closet where all our travel maps and magazines are that I plan to go through one of these days. I know what will really happen. A time will come when the whole shelf gets swept into the recycle bin because our days of travel will be over. I hope that’s a long ways off. Until then, I’ll keep picking up and saving those travel cards and pamphlets!
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