Oh, the Places I've been by Paty Jager

I love that this month is about travel at Romancing the Genres. This year has and will be one of my most traveled years. In June, I joined other members of The Authors Guild on a trip to Iceland. It was a trip I wouldn't have thought about had it not been for the invite in my email. But I had a great time and came back with an idea for a book!

After 40 years of asking, my hubby and I are finally going to Hawaii. That trip will be in October this year. I've always wanted to see tropical sand, surf, and plants in person. I'm scheduling items into our time there to help me set a book there as well. I'm always thinking about books!

But I will have to say, the trip that opened my eyes and drained me was a trip we took 27 years ago. My husband is 100% Dutch. His parents moved to the U.S. in the 1950's and he was born here shortly afterwards. He'd only been to The Netherlands once as a child, so in 1992 we took all four kids and his mom to The Netherlands.

Our family in the clothing of Volendam

We stayed two weeks. But because the homes are so small, they split us up among family members. My mother-in-law and the two girls stayed with one family, while hubby and I and the two boys stayed with another family in the same town. Each day we would meet up with either the families we stayed with or other family members would pick us up and take us to see the sights.

On one trip, hubby's cousin and her husband rented a van and took hubby, me, and the kids to Belgium. Along the way one of the boys had to go to the bathroom. Over there along the roads there were no rest areas. People just pulled over at wide spots and did what they needed to do. We picked such a spot and the boys took off behind a tree.

The rest of us got out and stretched our legs even though driving from where we were staying in The Netherlands to Belgium was less than two hours.  Hubby's cousin noticed the trees were cherry trees with ripe fruit. We all picked a few and ate them. We called to the boys who were taking a long time and they finally arrived. We noticed their pockets bulging. When they revealed they'd shoved cherries in their pockets, hubby's cousin said, "Stupid boys. You ruin your clothes." We all still laugh about that.

This same couple took hubby and I out on the town one night in Amsterdam. The streets were overflowing with people partying on a Friday night. We were sitting at a sidewalk table sipping a drink and watching the people when a man dress in clothing like a clown, his face painted up, and an inner tube around his middle with a large fake penis sticking out asked me to pet his friend as he shoved the penis at me. I was mortified but everyone else laughed. The cousins told us he was a man about to be married and was out on his bachelor party with friends. The friends dress the soon to be groom up and then take him around to all the bars. There were also women dressed in crazy outfits being herded by other women. These were the brides to be.

Later they took us to the Red Light District. There were women from teenage to in their 80s standing in windows for everyone on the streets to see. And men lined up at some of the buildings ten deep. At that time all we had for a movie camera was a large VHS recorder. It was in my large bag and when hubby wanted something filmed, I would stick the end out and turn it on. I guess one of the bouncers at one of the houses of ill repute saw the red light or something from the camera and started after us. Hubby grabbed the bag with the camera and my hand and we took off running with his cousins laughing and running behind us. We made it out of the Red Light District and  laughed all the way back to their house. When we played the tape, there was very little to see other than the man yelling at us. I didn't have it pointed at the row of windows that hubby had wanted filmed to show his friends back home. But we had a good time running like fugitives! 

 That is a vacation we hope to make again soon before more of his aunts and uncles are gone and his mother is in too bad of shape to make the trip.

Do you have memories that will never fade from a vacation?

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 40 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.


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