#A to Z: Joy

“How wonderful it is that we laugh because our bodies cannot contain the joy.” – author unknown

This post is for the #A to Z Challenge: Letter J. For links to all my #A to Z posts, click here.

OH JOY

The photo is blurry, and it was taken a considerable time ago. But whenever I think of the joy of childhood, this is one of the moments I remember. We had traveled by car from Toronto to Lake George in the Adirondacks, about an eight-hour drive. We checked in, quickly cleaned up for dinner and set out to walk down to the lake. We never made it.

These two pranced around a tight circle of lawn for a good 40 minutes, stretching stiff limbs, reveling in the sparkling air, drinking in the mountains that surrounded them. It was their first “faraway trip,” as our daughter called it, although we had traveled closer to home on many occasions. “Oh Mom, this was so worth it,” she told me.  Exactly.

I have never understood why travel releases such exuberance, but I have felt it too, on almost every trip. To watch my children experience their first understanding of the pleasures of travel was a joy for me as well.

TRAVEL NOTE 

The Sagamore Resort on Lake George at Bolton Landing, NY is in the Adirondack Mountains.  Built in the 1880s as a retreat for the wealthy, it has since been redeveloped as a family resort and conference centre. The white clapboard Victorian inn, centrepiece of the 70-acre island, is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.