I woke in terror and opened my eyes to green tubular objects floating toward me — string beans, or slow-motion bullets. I yelled, startling my husband. When I snapped out of it I reassured Dale, “It’s only what always happens.” Meaning: “It’s only because night terrors are my thing, not because I’m traveling to Juárez,” although that was precisely the problem. I closed my eyes and pictured my breasts exploding. I wondered what Dale would do if I were shot. It was too much to contemplate. I asked God to keep me safe, and fell back to sleep.

We took a bus to El Paso’s old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar downtown.

I woke a short time later to catch a flight to El Paso with my friend Patricia. Before I left the house, I removed my engagement ring. Patricia, who used to live in Juárez, said, “I’m glad you left your ring at home.” No point attracting robbers with a diamond, especially one with sentimental value. I still wore my wedding band, an instinct from younger days when traveling solo meant constant sexual harassment.

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This Thursday, I’m traveling to a place that should have yellow caution tape around it. According to the news, according to family and friends, according to the U.S. State Department, if I’m looking for danger: non-essential travel to Chihuahua, Mexico is the way to go, especially Ciudad Juárez. When I told my grandfather I was going to Mexico to do research for my historical novel, he shouted a bit, then insisted, “OK, next subject.” But hey, sometimes Grampa shouts when he and Dad are deciding where to grab breakfast on Sunday, so I didn’t take it personally.

According to the U.S. State Department, if I’m looking for danger: non-essential travel to Chihuahua, Mexico is the way to go, especially Ciudad Juárez.

I’ll only be in Juárez for a day and a half of my five-day round-trip from El Paso to Casas Grandes. Don’t tell my husband, but I’m more scared about the twelve hours I’ll be on a Mexican highway. I plan to hide a couple hundred bucks in my shoe, in case I need to pay off highway robbers. Remember when our parents used to say, “That’s highway robbery!” and we thought it was just an expression?

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If you’ve been following my series, Tracing China’s Past, the following is a look at the final day of my first South China research trip for my novel. Tortillas from The Canton Café will be loosely based on the history of my Mexican-Chinese grandmother.

I learned “The Hong Kong Story” at the Hong Kong Museum of History. The elaborate, enormous exhibits included an actual fishing junk.

April 14, 2008 – Hong Kong

Yesterday, on my last full day in China, my translator Zhu Zhu and I learned “The Hong Kong Story” at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Our jaws really did drop in reaction to the elaborate, enormous exhibits, which included: an actual fishing junk, a recreation of a Punti ancestral hall, a bridal sedan chair, an entire Hong Kong store that was in business from the late 19th to late 20th century, and a recreation of a traditional Cantonese teahouse of the sort that would have been popular when my great-grandfather Ma Bing Sum was a young man preparing to leave China for America.

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I believe one way to turn travel into a more fulfilling adventure is to embark on a mission. I met Coloradan Lynette Collins at a book event, where she read an inspiring email she’d written about her recent mission to Honduras. She and her dentist husband had joined the East Chapel Hill Rotary Club of North Carolina for a medical/dental mission. Lynette kindly agreed to let me share her email here. The written content is unaltered, with the exception of a few words of clarification:

One way to turn travel into a more fulfilling adventure is to embark on a mission. A medical/dental mission to Honduras is just one of many possibilities.

LYNETTE’S EMAIL

Hi everyone!

I wanted to let you know that we returned early this morning and we are well… no malaria yet like George Clooney contracted in Sudan! Bozo. He should have taken pills and received his shots like we did!

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On every journey, I pick new things up and leave old things behind: belongings, attitudes, friendships. I love Alaska so much that it wasn’t until after my talk in Bellingham, Washington that I realized something had dislodged inside me on my last visit to the Last Frontier.

I had fun talking with the small but enthusiastic group at Village Books.

I had fun talking with the small but enthusiastic group at Village Books, yet my insides felt chaotic. I wondered why. Part of it was due to something I normally wouldn’t talk about here, but then, I suppose this is the perfect place to talk about it…

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This story ends at the Seattle talk show New Day Northwest, where I appeared right after musician Lukas Nelson, son of Willie Nelson, and a unique talent in his own right. I’d never heard him before and I was impressed:

Lukas Nelson is the son of Willie Nelson, and a unique talent in his own right.

How did I get here?

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I’m not doing this right. Every time I travel, that thought occurs to me at some point. I woke up yesterday morning at 7:30, and was ready to go by 9:00, which made me feel so grownup and responsible. Then I remembered I hadn’t yet checked the driving directions from Cheyenne, at the southern end of Wyoming, to Lovell, at the northern end. I regretted my lack of a GPS or smart phone — though I don’t know how I would have swung that, when I had neither enough cash nor credit for this trip until a couple of days before it started. Ah, panic: sometimes I rationalize that this is what adventure is made of.

It was a gorgeous second day of spring, but wow, I’d forgotten how windy Wyoming is!

I copied the directions off Google Maps, then decided to call the Fort Causeway Hostel for specifics, because I might arrive there at dusk. I thought I had the phone number, but I didn’t. So I checked the website, but the number wasn’t listed. Odd. I thought I made my reservation by phone – how did I do that? I gave up, and hoped to arrive before dusk. So, I left at 9:30. No problem. Google said the drive would take about six hours, 45 minutes. I had budgeted eight, including a lunch break, gas breaks, and a few stops for photos. Plenty of time.

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It was only two hours to Cheyenne, Wyoming - a drive I’ve made before. The first time was just over twenty years ago when I interviewed for a reporting job at a local TV station. I suppose it’s for the best that I never got that job, or I wouldn’t have become a reporter in Alaska. And if I hadn’t gone to Alaska, I wouldn’t have written a memoir about my life in Alaska (and my trek around the world). I passed through Cheyenne again seven years ago, on my way to Thompson Falls, Montana. I spent a month there, cleaning out my deceased grandmother-in-law’s house, and working on my memoir.

Cheyenne was the first stop on my four-week book tour for They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel and the Power of Running Away.

So, here I was again on a straight stretch of I-25, Rocky Mountains to the left, Great Plains to the right, cringing as my car threatened to rattle itself to pieces at “Speed Limit 75,” actual speed slightly more. Why? To reach the first stop on my four-week book tour for They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel and the Power of Running Away.

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The day is finally here, the first day of my four-week book tour, and as usual, despite my careful planning and preparation, I’m still running around at the last minute: paying that last bill, printing up those workshop handouts, changing my mind about today’s reading, oh, and breakfast… did I buy gas? Yet I’m happy, excited about going on another shoestring journey to celebrate the book about my shoestring journey: They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away. This time, I’m married, but I’m kindly leaving the husband at home - taking him on this whirlwind tour might actually devour him, and in my opinion that would be bad manners.

In about an hour, I’m jumping in my car and heading to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I’m speaking at the Laramie County Library at 2:00 this afternoon. Get this: parents can send their kids to the Storytime Room for Ice Cream Sunday, then sneak over to the Cottonwood Room to hear me read about how I ended up in a love triangle with two alcoholics in Alaska, and then ran away to trek around the world alone. I even have pictures: of my world tour, not the love triangle… sorry.

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My decision to leave and travel around the world with a 13-year-old was not impulsive but directed. At the time, I hardly realized the impact on everyone who was involved with this journey. The gift of telling the story from my current perspective is interesting in that so much more of it is understood.

I truly expected this painting to fall apart by now, but it’s fine.

The date was September 10, 1997, and I will never forget the morning my husband dropped our youngest daughter and myself off at the bus stop on our way to JFK airport and the world. I had never traveled by myself or been out of the country more than stepping over the Canadian border one time. But when you know you have to do something, courage finds a place in your heart. We left with too much stuff and started a process of getting rid of things in Chile that lasted all the way to Thailand. I was traveling with a portable wooden easel and 20 pounds of oil paints. I didn’t realize when I left how hard it would be to find mineral spirits when I didn’t understand the language. It was a constant challenge in each country that we went to, but we were eventually able to find it every time.

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