We are Voyagers!

I was reading an interview with the novelist Russell Banks in the Wall Street Journal last week in which he distinguished between a traveler “…tends to be running away from something” and a voyager “…tends to be running toward something.”  I believe that we are, finally, voyagers, with nothing to run away from and everything to run toward.

Banks also had a wonderful definition of the perfect traveling companion, “optimistic, energetic, not easily discouraged, not inclined to depression (and yet not naive or sentimental either), skeptical and up for anything.” As I talk to friends and acquaintances about our upcoming adventure, I have become very aware of how lucky we both are to have found in each other the ideal traveling companions!

Our time after Paris (post 10/23) is beginning to take shape.  We think we’ll head south toward Chinon, in the Loire Valley, for a couple of days, then to the Moulin du Roc near Brantôme for a romantic dinner and overnight, and on to St Emilion for a few days.  We are planning for our next long stop to be in the Languedoc, north of Spain near the Mediterranean.  With help from a friend of Ray & Tori’s who lives there, we expect to spend November exploring the entire area, probably from a base in Narbonne.