Travel adventures in my life have usually meant taking off for exotic locals, sailing around islands, jumping off bridges or scuba diving in tropical reefs thousands of miles from home. Just last week I was lamenting the fact that I was missing travel, while at the same time trying desperately to get settled in.

Saturday morning, Chris surprised me and reminded me that travel and adventure can happen in just a day trip right in our own “backyard.” Not all trips have to be comprised of months of backpacking around the world.

When the alarm clock went off at 5 am on a Saturday I was smacking Chris to turn it off. I thought he’d left it set from the day before.  Instead he sat bolt upright in bed, a completely uncharacteristic reaction to an alarm clock for him,  and said we have to be on the road by 6am. Often he talks in his sleep though usually it’s some unintelligible language that must only make sense in the dreams he never remembers.  I thought he was sleep walking and talking.  He said, “Nope I’m awake and we have to get moving. We need to be on the road by 6am.”

Yeah right. As he got into the shower I put the pillow back over my head and was thinking, “You better not be trying to take me on some kind of sunrise bike ride.” I only learned how to ride a bike a few summers ago, and I’m still not so confident on one.  I have to be mentally prepared to go on a bike ride, and surprising me at 5 am on a Saturday is not my idea of preparation.

It soon became apparent that he was not sleep walking but was serious. Begrudgingly I got up, asking what I needed to wear. “Are flip-flops okay?” He said he was checking the weather and it sounded like it would be chilly, I should put on walking shoes. Great not a bike ride but a hike?  My first thought was perhaps this surprised included going to pick up a puppy since I’d been asking for one for a while….and he did forget to get me a birthday present…which I’d been reminding him about for the past 3 weeks.

He kept saying we needed to get on the road early because of traffic and we started heading north instead of south. I honestly had in my mind that maybe we were going to a breeder to pick up a dog, but I figured it would be south. As we headed toward Alexandria my next thought was, “are we going on a hot air balloon ride?” Don’t know why I thought that, but it was early and my mind was crunching. I was still tired and he said, that I’d have time to sleep.  Time to sleep? Are we going to a day spa? Couples massages? (Really not his style but hey it could be mine!)

We pulled into the Huntington Metro Station and got tickets. I just loaded my SmartTrip card so I really didn’t know where we were getting off. As we headed toward DC I figured maybe it was a day of exploring the city since this was now going to be so close to our new home at least for the next couple years.  As we were ridding on the metro  I said oh, “You meant a little nap on the metro as we headed to our destination.”

He just looked at me and said, “Yeah that’s what I meant.” When we got off the metro at Union Station I headed for the daylight and Chris took a sharp left toward the Amtrak lines….okay now I was confused…where are we going?

Chris picked up tickets and we sat in a strategic spot where I couldn’t tell what train was coming into the gate. This was actually becoming fun as I was now sipping my Starbucks and waking up a bit.  I began to realize this was quite a thought out surprise adventure we were on. He kept making references to cutting it close so I knew there was a time-table for whatever it was that waited at the end of the line. As we boarded the train at 8:20 am I now knew we were on a train bound for New York. But it also stopped in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Jersey just to name a few stops.

To throw me off the trail Chris said, if we were going to New York we would have flown…this was really fun, what did he have up his sleeve? Now I really understood his comment about time to sleep after we passed from state to state to state on a 3 plus hour journey through 5 states. But come on, I couldn’t sleep! I was trying to figure out what was going on! As we traveled by train, I updated my facebook friends who were following my Saturday morning surprise. The speculations were funny someone even mentioned carriage ride proposals in Central Park (Yeah right, that would be far too out of character for Chris.)

As we got closer to New York, Chris tried to throw me off track by saying there was more movement to go, and even said we were going to Canada…but I knew this was just a day trip so Canada was just a bit too far out for that. I do always carry my passport though so that really wouldn’t have been a problem.

I was starting to get wise to the surprise, but I didn’t want to spoil the fun, however I did say, “Canada huh, how about Africa.”

As we got of the train in Penn Station in New York City and started walking we found ourselves in Times Square looking up at all the Neon. Chris took out his iphone GPS and was trying to figure out where we needed to be, it was now noon and we were standing in one of the busiest spots in the city where as just hours earlier I was sound asleep in the suburbs of Woodbridge Virginia. We headed to the middle of Times Square to get a better view of what was around. While Chris was looking down at his GPS I was looking all around me and then I said, “Is that what you are looking for?”

And we were here. The Lion King on Broadway! The show was incredible. While the adventure to New York was to see a Broadway show, it wasn’t just any show, instead I was transported to Africa and to places I lived for 7 months.

When I lived in Africa I felt very grounded. There is something magical about Africa; it is a place where history began. The land, the soil and the people are so rich. The tribal undertones of some of the music from Lion King brought back memories in vivid recollection of time spent in an amazing land. For me the show was more than just a show, but also a conduit back to a place and a feeling which centers me on a level that’s hard to explain.

While New York isn’t exactly in our backyard, it is compared to an actual trip to Africa. It was an amazing day put together by an amazing man and just the journey I needed with all the crazy changes going on in our lives lately.

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