Edith Cook
One of the perks of retirement is being able to travel “on a budget,” which is especially true when you use a budget travel club. My favorite modus operandi is the affordable travel club, “atc” for short. For a modest tip, guests arrive after dinner, where the hosts sit and chat with their protégés. Travelers get a restful night’s sleep in a bed and breakfast, as well as a leisurely breakfast before departing in the morning.
I’ve used the travel club as far away as Germany (where I traveled by train) and as far away as Casper, Wyoming, a three-hour drive from home. Some of my repeat visits to the travel club have become long-distance friendships. Conversely, I’ve hosted guests from overseas as well as from various states across the union. My signature breakfast is sourdough waffles (or pancakes) with a choice of maple syrup, yogurt, fruit, and coffee.
ATC members have hosted me on several occasions. My dog Abby and I stayed with ATC hosts on the way to my youngest son and his family in California, my youngest son and his family in Idaho, and my oldest son and his family in Texas. On my way to Texas, I stayed several times with a retired college professor of physics who lost his wife to cancer several years ago. His Kansas town of Hays is a college town with an extraordinary natural history museum, the Steinberg Museum, which advances the appreciation of the natural history of the Earth and the evolutionary forces that impact it, with an emphasis on the Great Plains.
This year will be the first time I’ve traveled without my dog, who passed away a few weeks ago. Luckily, my partner said he’d be joining me on my next winter trip. He loves driving my sedan, a hybrid, and raves about its fuel economy. He owns (and is passionate about) a gas-guzzling truck, which he used after his wife died to repeatedly visit adult children and their families in eastern Nebraska. (The trip takes an entire day.) Until we met a year ago, he had never heard of travel clubs, much less the ATC.
Since then, we have hosted several couples and singles from the ATC. Most are on their way to another location, others want to enjoy the mineral hot springs in Saratoga. Last year, one of these couples alerted us upon arrival, they wanted to see a harvest moon rise behind the Snowy Range mountains and asked us to drive them to a convenient location.
“This is a super harvest moon,” they told us, “because it will be full at a time when its orbit is unusually close to our Earth.”
A nearby park on a hill served the purpose. While looking for a picnic table, they asked for a recommendation for dinner. We pointed them to a local pizzeria known for its delicious Italian food, The Grumpy Italian. Since time was short, our guests ordered pizza to go, saying they would share it with us at the park while we waited for the moon to come out. Although we had finished our dinner, we would never turn down a slice of Grumpy’s pizza. My partner, who at the time had not yet graduated from a widowed neighborhood friend, offered to chip in with a bottle of cognac, since we didn’t have any beer on hand. So we drank water with our pizza while our ATC friends used vegetable juice. Afterward, we sipped cognac from the glasses my friend had prepared. As the moon rose in all its glory, we jumped up on the picnic bench for a clear view through the treetops. It was a moment to savour.
In Salt Lake City, I've stayed several times with a favorite ATC couple, the male half of whom prides himself on preparing steel-cut oats in a potpourri of oatmeal, nuts, and berries, with side dishes.
of fresh fruit and cinnamon rolls. His wife, who suffered from polio as a child and walks on crutches, was a schoolteacher until her retirement. I told the couple the story of my late husband. At age six, a case of polio left him with a withered leg and a damaged spine, forcing him to use crutches for the rest of his life.
At a recent breakfast with my ATC friends, I mentioned that I had started reading one of their books, a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by a best-selling American author. They insisted that I take the book with me. “You can return it next time you come,” they said.
Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who, during the Nazi reign of terror, persevered in his belief that every individual has the right to adhere to the religion of his or her choice. In the face of monstrous evil, Bonhoeffer became a dissident, spy, and saboteur who participated in efforts to smuggle Jews out of Germany into neutral Switzerland. The Nazis executed him by firing squad just days before the collapse of the Reich.
In Casper, Wyoming, I used to attend an annual lecture series at his middle school and was happy that the ATC hosts accepted me and my dog. Unfortunately, the lectures, which attracted presenters from around the world, ended with the arrival of COVID. In 2024, the lectures morphed into a summer camp for high school teachers.
Another time, my Chinese friend and I stayed with Casper's hosts on our way to Yellowstone National Park. It was my friend's last respite; she was being called back to Beijing by her government, which had funded her graduate studies in the United States. I have since visited her and her parents in Beijing.
Fort Collins has several atc hosts, both couples and singles. When I recently had to make an appointment with a medical specialist in their city whose only appointment was at 7:30, I emailed a widowed atc who had hosted us before and asked if he was available to host us the day before my appointment. He said he would be happy to host us again.
There are many great things about The Affordable Travel Club that haven’t been mentioned in this report. Suffice it to say that our next adventure with ATC awaits us like a bright spot on the horizon. Although it will be without my beloved canine companion, who once took up most of the back seat of my car, my partner and I are looking forward to traveling together again.
Miss Edith (Dr. Edith Cook) is a German by birth and a naturalized citizen. She worked as a translator before emigrating to California. She has taught at several colleges and universities in California, South Dakota, and Tennessee. As a writer, she has won the Wyoming Arts Council's Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award and its Professional Development Fellowship. Visit her at www.edithcook.comHis opinions are his own and do not reflect the editorial position of the Cheyenne Post.A
