Plan your best and let life happen in unexpected ways.
Last week I took a vacation with my family. My daughter had planned everything: where to stay, what meals to eat and where to visit.
Her planning made the trip relaxing and drama free. However, the unplanned events were the most memorable events.
One day we took a boat tour on the Ash River near the Canadian border. Rain and swarms of mosquitoes were not surprising during the tour. The hail storm while riding on the boat was not planned!
It was very memorable trying to dodge the hail and stay dry as much as possible. Also, hail was hitting the pine trees, causing smell of fresh pine cover the area which I had never experienced before so intensely.
I had a great desire to see the sunrise. I woke up early for a few days to do so. Unfortunately those mornings were cloudy and I could not experience the full color of sunrise. I decided not to pursue effort to see the sunrise by setting my alarm. The last day of our stay, I woke up without any alarm around 430 AM and noticed the colorful sky. Wow! Sunrise and no clouds (it became cloudy later again). I was elated to watch the colors in that early morning mixed with sounds of birds in the background.
Besides spending time with my family, those two events were my memorable highlights of vacation which could not have been planned.
It reminded me that some of the best things in life cannot be planned.
Think back on some memorable times you have had. How much of the experience was planned?
Copyright .2022 by Shervin Hojat
Strangely, I have experienced similar unexpected events. We were watching the parade for America's Dairyland celebration hosted by our town that year. The Dairy Queen and her court were riding in the front of the parade down Central Avenue when behind them came a white wall of hail that soon engulfed them and headed for us. We jumped in our car and waited the storm out while the ground became totally covered to about 2 inches.
While staying in a beach bungalow with my good friend and his girlfriend at Hoa Hin Railway Station on the Gulf of Siam on our last night, I planned to get up and watch the sunrise over the Gulf. The week before I had watched the sunset on the other side of the Gulf while sharing a large fish with my friend and his sister on a dock restaurant.
I woke up easily and went out on the porch. To my surprise, there was a dense fog that blocked all view of even the beach. But on the water I could hear the joyous yelling and splashing of young children and the sound of motorboats. To my right on the road was a line of buses that had brought the children from a camp somewhere nearby.
Last evening, I looked out my window to the north and dark clouds were looming. But a pristine white cloud rose above the black with pink tips like I had never seen. I wish I could have photographed it. I might have won a photographic contest.
Ron