Summer’s here and while this particular season is not without a bit of uncertainty, a lot of folks are hitting the open road, heading to treasured getaway spots, or exploring new places. So it seems like a great time for the intrepid wayfarers of Better Said Than Done to talk about some of their most spectacular adventures.
This Saturday, July 31st, we’re bringing you “Travel Tales: Stories from Far and Away!” Our stage will host seven road warriors who’ve been to the ends of the earth – Sheila Arnold, Nick Baskerville, Bonnie Gardner, Tim Livengood, Miriam Nadel, Andrea Young, and Sufian Zhemukhov – taking off at 7 P.M. EDT.
You have two options on how to experience this grand travelogue! If you’re in the metro D.C. area and want to join us at the Auld Shebeen in Fairfax, you can be there with us in person! If you’re further away, or would just prefer to take off with us virtually, you can watch our livestream on YouTube! All your ticket options are right here!
I asked each of the tellers to describe a travel experience that is seared into their memory. Here’s what they had to say…
Sheila Arnold: Being at St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Italy, on Easter Sunday and hearing the Pope speaking. It had been loud beforehand: people talking, dogs barking, babies crying, vendors hawking wares; and then he stepped out – a huge cheer – and when spoke a silence that could only be supernatural. Amazing. My second most important trip: traveling to England with my middle sister in the summer of 1983; it would be our last trip together because she died later that summer.
Nick Baskerville: Every year while living in a foreign land, my mom and I ran a covert operation to get needed supplies undetected. She simply referred to it as “driving from Georgia to Philly and back for the holidays.” Whatever. Georgia didn’t have things like scrapple, soft pretzels, and Philly cheese steaks. We would bring back containers of the stuff riding in the brown Chevy van that had the code name “Brown Sugar.” We never got caught (because no one was actually looking). Still, it felt good to make it home, mission accomplished.
Bonnie Gardner: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Coming from the DC area, I thought I knew hot and humid, but this is a whole other level. The food is amazing, the architecture is an interesting mix of old Vietnam and sleek, modern high-rises, And the traffic! It’s a relentless stream of scooters, maybe 14, 15 abreast, that never stops. I learned how to cross the street – you just step out into it, keeping a constant pace and walking in a straight line, and the scooters will flow around you like water around rocks.
Tim Livengood: The summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii is a place I’ve been frequently, emerging at dawn from a night of work (as an astronomer) to see the Sun rising above the clouds in the East and the shadow of the mountain on the clouds to the West. The only sound is the wind across the barren volcanic dust and rock, with a faint hum from electrical power systems and air handlers for the observatories. Bicycling down the mountain in the dawn light is a glorious experience, like flying.
Miriam Nadel: We weren’t supposed to go to Ouba Islet. But, when we arrived on Tarawa, the main island of the Republic of Kiribati, all of the ferries had been cancelled due to an accident and there were no seats on the one flight to Butaritari, our intended destination. A hotel clerk’s uncle ran a fishing camp on Ouba, in the path of the total solar eclipse we were chasing. We were rewarded with a true tropical paradise of sandy beaches, warm breezes, and water so clear you could see the beds of giant clams. And, oh yes, we saw our eclipse.
Andrea Young: I spent a few of my high school years in Cairo, Egypt. While I found myself at school and playing sports mostly, but I did appreciate that we got to see the Sphinx and the Giza pyramids, often. Stable AA was where we’d get on horses to go riding in the morning. My favorite memory was being in the band and playing Pomp and Circumstance for the Seniors graduation right beside the Sphinx. While I was jealous I wasn’t graduating, it was nice to be a part of the early morning experience.
Sufian Zhemukhov: My first flight to Japan was pivotal – it changed me. I had imagined that, on our way from New York to Tokyo, we would go over the Atlantic or Pacific and was shocked finding myself flying over the Arctic. For the first time in my life, I realized the simple textbook fact that the Earth has a shape of a globe and not a map! Since then I never see it as the sun setting down, but rather feel that I am rotating away from the sun. And at such a moment, I can feel our universe in motion.
Now that you’ve wet your whistle from our rhetorical canteen, hop on board and join us for the grand tour! Doors of the Auld Shebeen open at 6:00 P.M., and the show starts at 7 o’clock Eastern. Grab your ticket now!
