When traveling, we often find ourselves at a crossroad. What road to take? Is one the quickest, or the most scenic? What untold treasures will be revealed? Will we regret taking one, and not the other? How would we know?

Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’was the theme for my High School Year Book fifty years ago. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood,  . . . and I—, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”. I have frequently taken the road less traveled, taken the less obvious choices in life, made decisions with my heart instead of my head, and the results have made all the difference.

Sometimes in life, we find ourselves at a crossroads. What path to take? Will one be filled with adventure, the other strife? Will we make the ‘correct’ decision? In life, unlike travels, there is seldom a retreat to the choice not taken. Songs remind us “What will be will be.”. So today, I find myself at the crossroads in both travel and life. My best friend, my beautiful bride, my traveling companion in the physical world and life for over forty years, died this January after a long illness, and all the questions for both life and travel remain to be answered.

How is life changed? How will travel be changed? What choices should I make? I always have had someone to return to on my solo jaunts, a person I did not want to leave alone for a long time, a person I did not want to be apart from for a long time. When we traveled together, there was the joy of sharing experiences, seeing the world through the eyes of the other, and having the help of another to make things better, more interesting, and exciting. At my crossroads, I have the freedom, or curse, of not needing to return, but continuing the adventure or ordeal. Which will it be?

So how will time on the road turn out? Like the rest of life, I suppose that’s to be determined. We will both find out at about the same time. I’ll keep you posted.