THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

WHEN YOU COME TO A FORK IN THE ROAD, TAKE IT

Team VFH official portrait

Robert Frost wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken” as a joke, ribbing his friend fellow poet Edward Thomas, who would always lament about not having taken the other road while out on their many walks together, thinking that if they had chosen the other way it would have better. People though read a lot into the poem. It was about choices in life and the effect it has on the future.

The late Beatles guitarist George Harrison wrote the song, “Any Road,” with the poignant line: “If you don’t know where you’re going / any road will take you there.”

The equally articulate catcher for the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, renown for comically wise Yogiisms weighed in on this decision-making point of view once when giving directions to his house. When you come to a fork in a road, take it, he had said. He meant that either way was equally a good way of getting to his home. 

We here at VFH Central would like to give our take on this matter with our own sage advice. “Wherever you go, there you are”. That must mean something ponderous to some, but to us it simply means we’re happy. I mean, why worry?

NOT SLOWING DOWN

After a year of traveling that had us in the Canary Islands, Grenada in the Caribbean, Colorado and Fiji I was very happy to stay home for a while. I got to putter in my garden, harvesting hot peppers and making and bottling hot sauces.

But, Janet wasn’t finished and in October and November she had gone somewhere. Of course, I wasn’t invited to a lady’s week with her friends down in Hilton Head.  Lots of bike rides dodging alligators and afternoons lounging at the beach for her. In November she went to Austin Texas to visit a family member. I bought the airplane ticket for her as a birthday present.

I wiled my time alone with rides through the Pennsylvania countryside following the direction my cigar pointed me, and any road that it chose was just as good as the other.

TO ENGLAND AND BEYOND!

We are not done with this year though. Later this month we’re off to Nantwich (make sure you pronounce the “T”) for the Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve. We’ve been there several times over the years, and it never gets old in Jolly Old England. I am looking forward to the trip...

ST. MARY'S NANTWICH

Sadly, because of COVID, American Airlines gave up the Philadelphia to Manchester route that was a major pipeline for us, and now we must fly to Heathrow then take another plane to Manchester. It's a short turnaround making that second plane, but Janet has done this before and assures me it's okay. 

Taking advantage of already being in Europe where intercontinental flights are cheap, we’ll not return directly to the USA after our visit. Instead, we’re flying to Budapest, Hungary for five days. Flights there from England are roughly $100USD on Ryanair. Currently the dollar is strong. It’s pretty much an even exchange with the Euro and when the British pound tanked back a few months ago and the exchange was JUST $1.09 to the pound we exchanged some money to have while there.

Hungary has the Hungarian Forint (HUF) which is .0026 to the dollar, but some of the guides we’ve hired to show us around Budapest will only take Euros, so we had to buy some of those. ATMs in Hungary spit out HUFs.

Thankfully Janet does all the detail work and I just get to see the sights.

Thanks for reading.

Love Janet and Greg

Merry Christmas and remember to LIVE LOVE and TRAVEL.

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj