Thank-you, mom and dad!
Just Around the Bend Travel blog is dedicated in memory of my parents, Ernest, and Charlotte (Clink) Corson, who introduced me to the world of travel from day one. Thank you, mom, and dad, for nourishing the importance of travel in all your children.
My first trip occurred after dad served his second Tour of Duty in England. It was during this tour that I was born. After his tour was up, the family moved back to the United States. Though I do not remember the trip as I was a mere toddler, I have heard stories of our voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and keep a treasured postcard with the ship’s image in a scrapbook. One of the last stories my dad shared; I was the only member of the Corson family that did not get seasick.
We did not travel much after my dad retired from the military. We moved to the family farm north of Decorah, Iowa, where we took numerous road trips to the Air Base in Omaha, Nebraska, and Madison, Wisconsin. On Sunday afternoons in the summer, we would visit family, go fishing or swimming, and have picnics. We would take drives to see the beautiful fall colors along the Mississippi River in the fall. The Sunday drives were a highlight of my childhood.
Interspersed will be stories of trips my nuclear family took from years ago, but to me, they feel like they were just yesterday. Other stories will be recent trips and work trips taken throughout my career that created lasting memories and built my confidence. There will also be stories from weeklong trips and weekend trips. The blog’s highlight will be a series of Sunday drives that I take with my childhood friend, Tony.
Knowing I wanted to record my travel experiences and share them with others, I needed a name. I agonized over the perfect name until one day, remembering my family’s excursion down the Upper Iowa River the weekend following my dad’s funeral, the name for this blog came to me. Just Around the Bend is the perfect name for a travel blog.
Wanting to celebrate dad’s life, the family met at Hutchinson Family Campground outside of Bluffton, IA on the Upper Iowa River to pick up kayaks and canoes, from there, we headed upriver to a landing just beyond the majestic limestone Chimney Rocks for a couple of hours on the river.
It did not take long to realize that this was an ad-hoc group of inexperienced kayakers, led by the family patriarch.
Assuming got the best of me that day. I thought we were going to kayak for approximately two hours. Instead, our supposedly guided tour lasted eight hours.
We spent the day paddling, floating, splashing, laughing, and bonding intertwined with a lost sandal, glasses (thankfully Vance had another pair of glasses in his truck), upturned watercraft, and soaked and muddy clothes.
Long after passing the two-hour mark and as the sun inched closer and closer to the horizon, we began to hear “When are we going to be there?” The fearless leader boldly announced, “Just around the bend.”
My next travel adventure is just around the bend.