Extraordinarily Ordinary

When bucket-list travel becomes part of the job—and why I never want to stop seeing it as extraordinary.

A few days before leaving on the latest in a marathon of four bucket-list-busting trips within a two-month stretch, I ran into one of my former interns, Ross. As I passed his table on the way out of a restaurant, he called after me, “Have a great vacation!”

Without missing a beat, I corrected him.

“It’s not vacation. It’s work.”

Technically, I was right. I was leaving to accompany nearly 40 travelers on a 10-day journey through some of America’s greatest national parks. There would be questions to answer, problems to solve, photos to take, people to look after and, as it turned out, more than a few unexpected situations to navigate.

This is my work.

But I've thought about that exchange ever since. Because while I was technically right, I'm not sure I liked what my response said about the way I had begun looking at my life.

I've noticed it with my dad, too. He'll ask me a question about an upcoming trip—the British Isles next summer, for example—and I've caught myself responding with something like:

“I don't know. That's five trips from now.” FIVE trips from now?! Think about the absurdity of that sentence! There is no version of me at any point in my life that had any clue I'd be typing that sentence. Let alone on a blog post for a travel business I had created.

For Dad, that trip isn't “five trips from now.” It's the British Isles. It's something he and Mom will anticipate for months. They'll wonder what they'll see and what the weather will be like and what they should pack. They'll tell people they're going. They'll count down the days.

For many of my travelers, these aren't simply trips. They are THE trip. The one they've saved for. The one they've dreamed about. The place they've always wanted to see. A bucket-list experience.

And somewhere along the way, I've been blessed enough that bucket-list experiences have become routine entries on my calendar.

Alaska. Yellowstone. Glacier. Hawaii. The British Isles. Iceland.

Next. Next. Next.

That's an incredible life. It's also something I never want to become ordinary. So as I left home for this particular journey, I had already been thinking about that. I knew I needed to change my perspective. Yes, I would be working. Yes, another trip would begin not long after I returned home. Yes, there would be emails waiting and clients needing things and another suitcase to pack.

But I didn't want to experience Yellowstone and Glacier as simply another week at work.I wanted to remember what it was.

Extraordinary.

Then this particular trip apparently decided to make absolutely certain I wouldn't forget it. There was the moment at Earthquake Lake when I convinced Mom to get off the motorcoach and take in the view. Just moments earlier she had said something I don't hear from her very often:

“I so, so, so love this trip!”

I caught a photograph of Mom and Dad together there. Someday, I know that photograph will mean far more to me than it does today.

There was Yellowstone.

Our motorcoach transmission failed on a mountain road. We had just traveled through a section of hairpin turns that made me uncomfortable even before anything went wrong. A few minutes later, our bus could go no farther. We had no cell service. A storm was moving in.

I was scared.

Really scared.

Yet somehow, everything that could line up in our favor seemed to do exactly that. The breakdown happened after we'd cleared the worst section of road. A park ranger happened to drive by even though we hadn't seen one in two days. Help came.

The fire department on scene decided the best way to get the disabled motorcoach off the mountain road would be to put it in neutral and roll backwards down the mountain road. “I’d ask that everyone please fasten their seatbelts.” This has GOT to be one of the top scariest moments of my entire life. Not because we were in danger. We were in very good hands. But somehow this week my mind and body decided to tell me I am apparently afraid of heights.

When you're responsible for 40 people and their safety—much like the days when I had lightning duty at Holiday World with ten or twenty THOUSAND guests and employees—you don't get to act on being scared. Back then, I could stare into the face of an incoming severe storm while calmly communicating what was happening, what was ahead, and making sure everyone was safe and comfortable. On a much smaller scale, I found myself doing the same thing on that mountain—on the microphone, standing at the front of that bus, calmly communicating updates as information came in and the authorities did what they do best.

Eventually a school bus arrived to carry us out of Yellowstone. Everyone was safe.

While we waited, I passed out water, kept everyone updated, walked to the only nearby convenience store I could find and bought snacks for the group. We arranged for pizzas to be waiting when we finally arrived at the hotel that night.

It wasn't the Yellowstone experience anyone had planned. But nobody complained. Our travelers laughed. They helped one another. They rolled with it. And somewhere along the way, a group of people riding the same motorcoach became a group of people who had experienced something together.

A couple of days later, our last sightseeing stop was the Cathedral of St. Helena. We arrived four minutes before Mass. This was not planned or expected. And after everything that had happened so far this week, I walked to the front of that magnificent church, knelt and had one very simple thing to say:

Thank you. Thank you, God, for taking care of us. Thank you for safety.

Thank you for this awful, beautiful life.

Mass began while we were still inside. Without thinking about the travelers standing behind me, I stood, made the sign of the cross and began saying the prayers I've said countless times before.

Later, one of our travelers jokingly accused me of “showing off” because I knew all the words.

His teasing led to an impromptu conversation outside the motorcoach about my faith, my conversion to Catholicism and a part of my life that many of the people traveling with me knew nothing about.

I couldn't have planned that moment.

I wouldn't have wanted to.

And then came Glacier National Park. Oh, Glacier. The rain from the previous day had cleared the smoke from the skies. The temperature was perfect. The sky was brilliant blue.

We climbed aboard Glacier's iconic Red Jammers and traveled Going-to-the-Sun Road. I was scared there, too. Thousands of feet up. Narrow mountain roads. Views over the edge that occasionally made me wonder why on earth I had voluntarily climbed aboard. And it was spectacular. Absolutely spectacular.

Glacier National Park stole my heart.

I took hundreds of photographs and videos, but none of them will completely capture what it felt like to be there. It was easily one of the greatest sightseeing experiences of my life.

And suddenly there was nothing ordinary about any of this.

Maybe that's what I needed this trip to remind me.

Extraordinary doesn't stop being extraordinary simply because you're fortunate enough to experience it frequently. But you can stop noticing. You can start counting trips instead of experiences.

You can answer your dad's excited question with, “That's five trips from now.”

You can hear someone say, “Have a great vacation,” and become so determined to make sure they understand that you work hard that you forget what an unbelievable privilege your work has become.

So Ross, you were right.

And so was I.

It was work.

There were early mornings spent answering emails and booking cruises before boarding the motorcoach. There were clients who needed help while I had no cell service. There were medical emergencies, hotel problems, a broken-down bus and plenty of moments when I was very much working.

But I also stood beside my mom and dad in places we'd seen in photographs our entire lives. I heard my mom say, “I so, so, so love this trip.”

I watched bears and bison and other wildlife and mountains and rivers and landscapes that left me speechless. I laughed and joked with travelers who started the week as clients and increasingly felt like companions on an adventure.

I knelt inside a cathedral and thanked God. I later attended Mass on a Saturday evening with nearly half our group at a church in Kalispell. I rode across Glacier National Park and discovered that there are apparently still places beautiful enough to completely knock the travel agent out of me and leave behind nothing but the traveler.

Thank God for that.

Because I never want the extraordinary life I've worked so hard to build to become something I merely move through on my way to whatever is next. There may always be another departure on the calendar. Another client needing something. Another itinerary to prepare. Another suitcase to pack.

But this trip reminded me that the next thing isn't promised—and the thing happening right now deserves my attention.

For someone traveling with me, this may be the trip they've dreamed about for years. For my parents, it may be one of the great adventures of their lives. And even if I've been fortunate enough to do this again and again, I want to experience it with them that way.

Not as trip number three of four.

Not as another week of work.

Not as another destination checked off a list.

As this mountain. This view.

This ridiculous broken-down bus.

This photograph of Mom and Dad.

This prayer.

This moment.

This once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Because no matter how many extraordinary places

this life takes me...

I never want extraordinary to become ordinary.