Front Porch: Change of scenery good for us, and so is the planning

Looking forward to a trip is so wonderful for the brain and for personal outlook that it’s almost better than the event itself. Well, maybe not that good but darn close.

I find myself there now and notice I have a little more spring in my step, a more cheerful outlook and zippy little melodies running through my head. Not that I was morose before, but I do feel lighter and, well, happier.

I’ll be going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland next month with my youngest son, and my husband and I plan to travel to Portugal and Spain in November, where we’ll visit with our oldest son. How nice is all that!

Time has been spent planning the Ashland trip. Plane tickets, motel reservations, researching the shows and selecting which ones to see and other things we might do there.

The Portugal trip involves a lot more, but happily, our son is arranging a lot of the European end of the travel.

There are ongoing discussions about what to see, where to go, which things to do on our own and which might benefit from an organized tour, what we might do together and what more vigorous activities the guys might do on their own while I engage in something more gentle.

It’s just such fun. And reading up on everything is great. Anticipation is exhilarating.

As lovely as these bigger trips are, I learned a long time ago how important it is to “get out of Dodge” from time to time – even if it’s just an overnight at a motel in a nearby town or even across town.

Some years ago we would do this when my father-in-law lived with us. He had suffered a stroke, and while we were able to have a caregiver with him 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays so we could go to work, we were on duty from 5 p.m. until the caregiver arrived the next morning, and of course on the weekends. Bruce handled all the physical care and I took care of meals and the medical and other bills.

Every couple of months Bruce’s sister would come over from Wenatchee and, with the help of her adult son, give us a weekend off – sometimes one night away, sometimes two. We usually didn’t go far, just in case – a downtown hotel or to Post Falls or Coeur d’Alene. It took a little while to unwind, but once we did, it was heaven. Just that little break was all we needed to be refreshed and ready to resume our regular lives.

What was almost as good was the anticipation. Thinking about the upcoming night away, where we might go, where we might stay, what we might do when we got there. That kind of forward focus was wonderful for morale. It wasn’t that our lives were awful; they certainly weren’t. But a little break was good and welcome.

Even when there isn’t that kind of need, there’s still something special about planning little getaways. Especially as we get older, the brain needs all the happy stimulation it can get. The planning and the doing of small adventures keep us engaged and connected.

And I’ve also found, to the shock and dismay of some of our friends, that all trips don’t need to be taken with spouse. Some are even preferable apart. My husband met one of our sons in Chicago in the cold of December one year, a trip that involved a lot of physical activity that I would be hard-pressed to have pulled off. I was delighted to keep the home fires burning while the guys did their thing. And from time to time I go back to Florida to visit with friends and family, pretty much going from talkfest to talkfest in living rooms across the state – seeing people my hard-of-hearing husband hardly knows, the kind of trip that would be mind-numbing for him. I happily go alone – and he is happy that I do so.

As mentioned, travel doesn’t have to be extensive, distant or expensive. Whatever the desire or the budget or the distance, the planning for and the doing of the thing is good for the soul.

So please understand that I mean only the best when I say this: Get out of town!