Sofa or South Rim? Do You Really Need to Ask?

By Fred Bruning

June 1, 2025

Well, the big AARP Magazine travel issue is out citing a survey that shows “older adults” spend $6,700 a year for trips which makes me think of the time we sent my mother and her friend, Aunt Edna, on a senior tour of the Grand Canyon and almost lost both of them.

It’s not that Mom and Edna – in their 80s – wandered too close to the South Rim after cocktails or disappeared on a mule ride to the canyon floor.

No, it’s that when we picked them up at JFK upon return, they looked beaten, exhausted, drained and aggrieved as though our gift “vacation” was a sly plot to hasten inheritance and what might we cook up next?

“Boy, you guys look tired,” my wife, Wink, and I said to Mom and Edna as they trudged toward the baggage area, each in the funny little pumps they wore for air travel, this well before fashion allowed Skechers and Crocs.

“A little rough,” admitted Mom, her customary rosy cheeks dimmed. “Up at 6. Long time on the bus. Rocks out there, you wouldn’t believe, hard on the feet. Couldn’t sleep. (Edna snores.) And then, you know, the old people.”

A cheery soul inclined to make the best of things, Mom tried her best to sound reassuring.

“It was something, though, the Canyon,” she said.

Less diplomatic, more direct, and imposing in a wig, Edna added: “Once was enough.”

We had good intentions.

Grand Canyon had been on Mom’s wish list for decades.

At another point in life, she wanted to see the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City because she loved to hear the choir sing, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” on the big Magnavox console radio that occupied most of our living room in Brooklyn.

Wink and I were newly married and living in Colorado Springs, my first newspaper job. Mom flew out and we packed up our Ford Fairlane wagon and drove to Utah for a weekend – nearly 600 miles.

Funny thing happened on the way to the Tabernacle.

We were in the mountains as darkness deepened and suddenly there was a late spring snowstorm. Ahead, flickered the lights of a motel, you’ve seen the movie. Desk clerk said he had one room with a double bed and cot. No clean sheets, take it or leave it.

Mom, Wink and I settled in. Place turned out to be a truckers’ favorite. Considerable whooping and groaning emanated from nearby rooms. None of us undressed. Mom took the cot.

“Oh, my,” she said, pointing above.

A former guest had taped a Playboy centerfold to the ceiling.

“The Ritz, Mom,” I said. “First class.”

“Maybe he was lonely,” said Mom, ever understanding.

We laughed, slept poorly, washed thoroughly, left early, visited the Tabernacle. Mom was delighted.

“Beautiful.”

But, years later, the Canyon was a mistake.

Mom and Aunt Edna at that point wanted nothing more demanding than coffee hour after services at St. John’s Lutheran, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn. Wink and I meant well, even if Aunt Edna may have had doubts.

Reading the Travel Issue, I wondered about the AARP demographic spending $6,700 a year on travel.

We have friends who take ocean sails and go on river cruises and decamp overseas now and then, a lovely and ancient village in France, Lake Como in Italy, Japan, Istanbul, even.

As a reporter, I traveled as the job sometimes required.

Hard work, good food.

I ate lobster at restaurant in Nicaragua that kept an alligator in a dining room pool. Scrambled eggs started the day at a rural comedor – diner – not far from Honduras. The best hummus ever was in a little Israeli cafe near the Red Sea. In Homer, Alaska, I found exemplary tacos and burritos at what was supposed to be a pizza place.

It was grand – and long ago. These days, when we are watching a foreign movie on the couch, I say to Wink, oh, isn’t Budapest beautiful, now we don’t have to visit.

“So hail, fellow travelers. Let’s go!” cheers the AARP magazine.

Have fun, folks, I think to myself. Safe trip, really. Watch the rocks.

Wink and I are as old as Mom and Edna when we sent them to Arizona.

Alert to our children: Don’t you dare.

Freepik via Google Images

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive