For me, part of traveling is buying souvenirs. I was disappointed during our recent New England tour. We visited a lot of gift shops, but unique items that represented the locale were hard to find. Apparently, t-shirts, coffee cups and shot glasses with the area name sold the best. The only things I brought home were a cute, little jug of maple syrup from a visit to a Vermont farm that produced it and a replica of the Old North Church in Boston.
I haven’t done a lot of traveling, but I treasure the reminders of trips I’ve taken. I love the rearing, wooden horse I purchased from the carver when Ken and I visited my cousin and her husband, Doris and Bob, at their timeshare condo in Mazatlan, Mexico, during January of ’89. I bought it from the artist who was standing along the street, holding his creation in his hands and rubbing it with brown Shinola shoe polish.
A jade butterfly that can be pinned to a garment as a brooch or attached to a chain and worn as a necklace reminds me of our tour of Alaska in 2009. I didn’t know the gemstone could be found anywhere but China.
In 2016, when we were on a bus tour to Savannah, Georgia, a man on the street was charging five dollars to form a name using electric fence wire. I’m always delighted to find anything that features my name. The “Lolita” that sits on our living room coffee table reminds me of that trip plus my childhood on the farm where we used electric fences for temporary cow pastures. I thought it was fun to touch the wire with a long, dry weed and feel the pulse of the battery supplied current to be sure it was working.
What souvenirs do you enjoy?