On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
First Timers Week
It’s Day 2 – let’s give a warm welcome to Elma! We’re still at 6 first timers, so it’s not too late for you to send your photos in and be published next week. Today’s On the Road is as much about the beauty of friendship as it is about the beauty of the world around us. ~WaterGirl
Elma
2019 was a bad year for death. One who was lost was my treasured traveling companion Geri. We met on a trip to Rome sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association. My husband did not like to travel and hers was done with long plane flights. So Geri and I ran away together to explore the world. And we saw a lot of it, Russia, China, South Africa, South America, Greece. Our last trip was on the Danube in Eastern Europe. We always booked our next trip while on the current one. When there was no discussion of a next trip while on the Danube, I knew we were done traveling. She was dead in less that 6 month. Here are a few pics from our trips as a little memorial to a very plucky lady.

We were in St. Petersburg for the White Nights. Taken at about 11pm

Protecting the Forbidden City.

Bathing elephants at the Chobe Reserve in Botswana Africa

Looking down into the Sacred Valley from the road to Machu Picchu.

The Freedom Bridge in Budapest, from the evening cruise on the Danube.

Cats everywhere in Greece

A plucky lady, sorely missed.
Mary G
Those are beautifully composed, Elma. You and Geri made some wonderful memories together. Thank you for sharing them with us.
p.a.
Wonderful memorial. Thanks, and condolences. I always try to remember what psychologists point out; happiness rests more with experiences, memories, than with material things, ‘stuff’.
MagdaInBlack
How wonderful to have had a friend like that. Thank you for sharing your travels together.
Baud
Cool travels. Glad you had someone to share it with.
SiubhanDuinne
Wonderful pictures
Wonderful places
Wonderful friend
Wonderful memories
JPL
Thank you for sharing your journeys with us.
debbie
I am so sorry for your loss, but what a rich and wonderful friendship!
satby
Condolences Elma! What great travels and memories.
Doug
Nice pictures from amazing trips!
(That’s the Freedom Bridge in Budapest; the Chain Bridge is just a little bit upstream and has white-ish stone towers.)
Dorothy A. Winsor
Great pictures and a great story. You two had some real adventures together.
Gin & Tonic
Nice photos, thanks. I am lucky in that my favorite traveling companion is the same person who sleeps next to me every night. Several times since the Covid-19 outbreak we’ve commented on how fortunate we have been to have visited many places in the last decade or so – because who knows how international travel will look in the future. Those memories sustain us.
Wag
Beautiful friendship, and beautiful photos. Thanks.
MazeDancer
Delightful photos. And lady, Thanks for all.
Eric NNY
Thanks Elma. I’m so glad you found a wonderful traveling companion. I’m sure she treasured your travels together.
Elma
@Doug: Thank you for the correction. I did not realize, until I was trying to put this submission together, what a bad record keeper I was with respect to my pictures. Identifying when, where, and what of some pictures was really a struggle.
Laura Too
Such a lovely tribute. Thank you!
rikyrah
What a beautiful memorial??
MelissaM
Lovely memorial. Having a simpatico travel buddy is special. My mom had her cousin for a bit, they went to Scotland and traveled to family together, but the cousin quickly got unable. And she also had a good friend she went on two trips with, but my mom couldn’t afford the level good friend wanted.
arrieve
What a beautiful tribute to your friend. I’m so sorry for your loss, but how wonderful that you were able to have these experiences together.
I especially love the picture from Botswana — I was lucky enough to visit Chobe many years ago. Being surrounded by elephants who had never been hunted and had no fear of humans was magical.
spudgun
Thank you for sharing these – they give me the wanderlust something awful…
I’m so glad you had such amazing adventures with such a great friend – I am sorry for your loss.
HinTN
The photograph from the Forbidden City is stunningly beautiful. I struggle to resolve it into a roof when what I continue to see is a reflection in water.
I second all other comments, too.
Thank you for sharing.
WaterGirl
@Doug: @Elma:
I made the correction – changing the Chain Bridge to the Freedom Bridge.
scribbler
Wonderful pictures. But is the date on the Greek cats one correct?
SkyBluePink
What wonderful adventures!
And a lovely tribute to your friend.
Auntie Anne
Your pictures are wonderful – I especially like (and am jealous of ?) the one from the Forbidden City! A travel buddy is a special friendship . . . I am so sorry for your loss.
frosty
You and Geri really covered some ground!
Kattails
Thank you for sharing these wonderful memories, what a blessing to have such a traveling companion. Now I need a tissue, must be a lot of pollens out today…
RoonieRoo
This is such a beautiful memorial and photos to a beautiful friendship. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Betty
Beautiful photos and froemdship. Thanks for sharing.
Miss Bianca
Wow. That’s all I got. Thank you for sharing your photos and memories of your friend.
WaterGirl
@scribbler: The date can’t be right on the cat because she submitted this to On the Road on 6/12!
Unless someone actually got time travel to work, in which case 2020 turns out to have some redeeming value after all!
Elma
@scribbler: The trip to the Greek Islands was actually 2017. Not sure how the date got messed up. I would love to be there now. Just got a phone call from my sister, another traveling companion, that our transatlantic cruise scheduled for September has been officially canceled. Nothing to look forward to. . .
Elma
@WaterGirl: Thank you for making the corrections.
WaterGirl
@Elma: You are welcome! How about the date for the cat picture?
Elma
@WaterGirl: June 2017
TEL
What wonderful adventures you and Geri had together, Elma! It’s a beautiful tribute to your friend and friendship.
WaterGirl
@Elma: updated! thanks
stinger
Stunning photos of some remarkable places! Thank you for including a picture of Geri. You were a good friend to her, enabling all those adventures in the last several years of her life, as she might not have traveled like that by herself. In her last six months she was sustained by magical memories.
Doug
@Elma: Glad to help!
I lived a year in Budapest, not long after the fall of Communism. Lovely city.