The COVID-19 pandemic has touched all of our lives in so many ways, from our everyday routines (I haven’t seen most of my coworkers in person in months) to the once-in-a-lifetime events (multiple friends have postponed or drastically downsized weddings). One thing I’ve missed while doing virtually everything at home is 旅行. So many of us had big 旅行 plans for the year–when Massachusetts went into lockdown in March, I was in the beginning stages of planning a trip to France, a friend of mine was planning a month-long trip to Turkey and learning Turkish, my cousin had just gotten a summer 实习生ship outside of her home state. 不用说，这些旅行并没有发生.
To satisfy some of my wanderlust, I’ve been turning to the memories and mementos of past 旅行ers. Luckily, the MHS holds many items fitting that description! Since I k现在 many others must be missing 旅行ling and going on adventures, I thought I would share a couple of my favorites.
James Morgan was a long-time reporter and editor for the 波士顿环球报, who often 旅行ed the country to cover the politics of the day. He also 旅行ed domestically and abroad for pleasure, documenting many of his 旅行s in 剪贴簿. Missing out on my European adventure this summer, I was drawn to Morgan’s scrapbook of his 1925 trip on board the SS 拉普兰, which brought Morgan and his wife from New York to ports around the Mediterranean. 他们访问了直布罗陀, 摩纳哥, 罗马, 弗洛伦斯, Gunten, 和巴黎, 在许多其他方面, 然后乘坐SS号返回纽约 拉普兰 1925年6月.
The Morgans’ full itinerary, written inside the front cover of the scrapbook
一路走来, the Morgans picked up mementos of their trip,包括 notes from family sent prior to their departure, 拉普兰号的乘客名单, 船上的娱乐节目, 他们遇到的其他旅行者的来信, 明信片, 酒店宣传册, 收据, 甚至还有一些植物.
A ticket to a viewing of the solar eclipse of 24 January 1925 – note the guarantee for a rain checkSample page from the Morgans’ time in Switzerland
Perhaps my favorite item from the scrapbook is a faux passport drawn up for James. It requests that those presented with the passport allow him “unsafe and unfreely to pass and repass” and give him “all unlawful aid and no protection.” It lists his height as “5 kilometers less 50 millimeters,” his eyes as “Soft smiling – Blue Grass brown,他的鼻子是“鹰钩鼻”.” It is undersigned by what I can only assume are his friends.
Shifting gears to adventures a bit closer to home, I also found great joy in the Eliza Lee Lothrop Homans diaries. While she was also a world-wide 旅行er (who visited many of the same cities as James Morgan), I was drawn to a 日记 that recorded her 1871 trip to the Adirondacks with her husband, 查尔斯·达德利·霍曼斯. 在他们旅行的开始，她写道:
On Friday morning September 29 ’71 Charlie and I started for ‘the Adirondacks’!!! we couldn’t have k现在n less of our destination if we had been starting for heaven – and certainly have much 更多的 definite ideas of the kind of preparations to make for the latter place!
The opening page of Homans’ account of the trip
Despite their lack of planning, the Homans seem to have had a spectacular trip. 由他们的朋友“肖”陪同,他们朝伯灵顿走去, 佛蒙特州, where they made a chilly evening crossing of Lake Champlain into New York. Eliza describes their drives through soaring mountain passes and past quaint farms, 都披上了华丽的秋色. I was particularly struck by her description of a morning spent on a lake. 她写道:
Oh! 如白昼般温暖，美丽无比. 我们悠闲地划船, 旅行的诗意, sitting at ease + floating through the lovely country. At last a man hailed us to watch one side of an island on to which a deer had run . . . we waited there till finally he though it must have got off without his k现在ing so we rowed on to the end of the lake
Other notable events from the trip were getting caught in a sudden rain storm, spending an evening singing with mountain guides at an inn, 睡在最舒服的床上, many nature walks and explorations of the lakes and rivers of upstate New York. Homans closes her account of the trip with the following entry:
Of Wednesday there is nothing to say save that it was our last day of adventure. The ride down in the cars was through that same beautiful country made 更多的 very lovely then with the glow of anticipation – 现在 the 更多的 somber shades of memory made it less attractive and the mist of falling rain seemed appropriate to the sobering effect of getting back to the facts and duties of life – but we have had a lovely lime. Charley is better, seems rested and jolly – and I am grateful for all I have enjoyed.
