There are people who love to stay home. Then there are people like my wife, Pam. I learned this about her almost immediately. When we first met, she casually mentioned that she would be gone for two weeks in late September because she had a trip planned to Greece. It wasn't presented as some extraordinary event. She simply loved to travel. She loved discovering places she had never seen, meeting people whose lives were different from ours, tasting unfamiliar foods, wandering streets without necessarily knowing where they led, and collecting experiences she could carry home with her. Travel wasn't simply something Pam did. It was part of who she was. I suppose I should have realized then what I was getting myself into.
Around that same time, I was debating whether to fly to Petaluma, California, to visit my longtime friend Mark. I could think of plenty of reasons not to go. Flights cost money. Schedules are complicated. There are always responsibilities waiting at home, and if you try hard enough, you can almost always convince yourself that there will be a better time later. Pam listened to me debating it and finally said something simple: "You'll regret not going." That was it. No grand speech about living life to the fullest. No lecture about how someday I would wish I'd made more time for old friends. Just four words from a woman I barely knew. So I went.
Looking back, I realize that conversation told me something important about the woman I would eventually marry. Pam had an instinct for saying yes to life. Not recklessly or irresponsibly, but when there was an opportunity to see something new, reconnect with someone important, or experience a little more of this enormous world God created, she tended to ask a question that I have since heard in one form or another many times: Why wouldn't we go? Fortunately for me, some of that rubbed off.
Not long afterward, Pam and I found ourselves in Northern California together. We wandered through San Francisco, surrounded by that wonderfully chaotic mixture of hills, cable cars, restaurants, neighborhoods, tourists, locals, and water that somehow makes the city feel enormous and intimate at the same time. At Fisherman's Wharf, the sea lions barked and carried on as though they owned the place. Judging by their attitude, I'm pretty sure they thought they did.
We traveled into Napa Valley, where vineyards rolled across the countryside in perfectly ordered rows and the afternoon sun seemed to turn everything a little more golden. We drove without much urgency, talking and laughing, stopping when something caught our attention. There wasn't a schedule telling us where we had to be next. In Monterey Bay, we traded the car for kayaks and found ourselves nearly at water level with sea otters floating nearby, seals appearing and disappearing around us, and birds sweeping overhead. The California coastline looked completely different from there—larger, wilder, and somehow quieter.
We visited Mark in Petaluma and stopped to see my son Jake and his wife, Talia. It was already a wonderful trip. Then came November 18, 2018, when Pam and I started walking across the Golden Gate Bridge.
By the time we reached the center, San Francisco had opened around us in every direction. The city rose through the haze in the distance. Sailboats moved across the bay far below us. Alcatraz sat out on the water, the Marin hills stretched behind us, and beyond everything was the Pacific. Traffic continued rushing past, and the bridge trembled almost imperceptibly beneath our feet. The world didn't stop for us. But for me, there was only Pam, a question, and then an answer. Yes.
I've always loved that part of the memory. There was no movie ending. The bridge didn't magically empty. Strangers didn't disappear from the scene. Cars kept moving, and boats kept sailing. Life continued all around us, and so did we. Only now, we were walking toward something together. That afternoon became more than the day we got engaged. In many ways, it established a pattern for the marriage that followed. We discovered that some of our deepest connections happened when we stepped outside our ordinary routines and went somewhere together.
So we made a promise that around our anniversary each year, we would go somewhere. It didn't have to be Europe. It didn't have to involve an airplane. It didn't even have to be particularly impressive. The destination wasn't really the point. We wanted to stop long enough to choose each other again—to explore, laugh, remember, and make another story that someday would begin with the words, "Do you remember when...?"
If California was where we decided to spend our lives together, Italy was where we began discovering how much fun that life could be. Our honeymoon took us through Rome, Florence, Naples, Tuscany, and Venice. Rome overwhelmed me in the best possible way. Standing inside the Colosseum, I tried to comprehend that people had gathered in that same place nearly two thousand years before us. History is different when you're standing inside it. Ancient ruins appeared beside busy modern streets. Churches opened into spaces so beautiful you instinctively lowered your voice. We walked until our feet complained and then, because we were in Rome, walked some more.
Florence felt graceful where Rome felt powerful. Art and architecture seemed to surround us everywhere we looked. We weren't trying to become art historians; we were simply allowing ourselves to be amazed. Naples was something else entirely—voices, scooters, food, movement, history, and wonderful disorder. It seemed like a city completely comfortable being itself.
But one of my favorite honeymoon memories happened outside the cities. We rented a scooter in Tuscany. There are certain sentences you don't fully appreciate until you realize they describe your own life: My wife and I rode a scooter through Tuscany on our honeymoon. Even now, that makes me smile.
Vineyards stretched across rolling hills. Cypress trees lined distant roads. Stone farmhouses appeared between fields, and villages rose from the hillsides as though they had been there forever. There was no tour bus and no schedule. It was just Pam, me, a scooter, and Tuscany. Every now and then, as we rounded a curve, I could feel her arms tighten around me. The sun was warm, and the wind was in our faces, and for a little while there was nowhere else we needed to be. Sometimes life gives you a moment so perfect that your only responsibility is to recognize it while it is happening. That was one of ours.
Then there was Venice. We got lost repeatedly and loved every minute of it. There is something romantic about being lost in Venice when you're with the person you most want to be lost with. We crossed bridge after bridge and followed narrow passageways that unexpectedly opened into little squares. Laundry hung above canals. Café tables spilled into piazzas. Old buildings leaned toward the water as though they had spent centuries watching people fall in love.
We didn't ride a gondola on that first visit. Strangely, neither of us felt we'd missed anything. Venice had already given us what we needed: time together. We didn't know then that Venice would eventually give us another chance.
Then came 2020. In early March, we were in Cozumel with Pam's family. It was one of the most carefree vacations I can remember. Our mornings began with breakfast together before those of us scuba diving headed for the boat. We spent hours underwater exploring the reefs, came back together later, and filled our evenings with dinners, dancing, karaoke, stories, and laughter.
Meanwhile, something strange was happening beyond our island. News began reaching us about empty grocery shelves and businesses closing. A virus called COVID-19 was spreading. It was difficult to comprehend. The sun was still shining in Cozumel. Boats were still going out. People were swimming and laughing. Everything around us looked normal, but the world waiting for us at home was changing by the hour.
We managed to get one of the last flights back, and then everything stopped. I was placed on temporary leave from work. Pam began working from home. Airports emptied, borders closed, and plans disappeared. The world that had seemed enormous only days earlier suddenly became very small.
That year's anniversary trip took us not across an ocean but to Bayfield, Wisconsin. There was no passport and no grand European city waiting for us, just a quiet hotel, beautiful scenery, and each other. And it was wonderful. We walked, talked, and slowed down. The world was uncertain, but the person beside me wasn't. Bayfield taught me something I have carried into every trip since: Travel isn't really about how far you go. It's about how present you are when you get there.
When the world began opening again, we headed west. Seattle gave us Pike Place Market, the waterfront, flying fish, and the Space Needle. But Mount Rainier gave us silence. Photographs don't prepare you for the scale of that mountain. Standing beneath it, watching clouds move around its snow-covered slopes, I felt very small. Some places do that. They remind you that you are part of something much larger than yourself. I couldn't stand there without thinking about God, creation, and how tiny we are within it all. And yet there we were together—two small people beneath an enormous mountain, grateful life had somehow brought us to that exact place at the exact same time.
Colorado followed. We bicycled through astonishing Western landscapes, went whitewater rafting with family, surfed sand dunes, and tried glamping—which I discovered is a very agreeable arrangement for someone who enjoys both adventure and mattresses.
One morning I woke before everyone else and stepped outside. The world was still dark, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, light began touching the mountains. Their edges turned gold. Shadows retreated down the slopes. The sky changed colors so gradually it seemed as though God were painting it while I watched. I simply stood there and thanked Him—for another morning, for the mountains, for Pam, and for this unexpected life we were building together.
Then, in 2023, I finally saw Paris. Being half French, I had carried Paris around in my imagination for years. I wondered whether the real city could possibly live up to the one I had constructed in my mind. It did. But strangely, the Eiffel Tower isn't what I remember most. I remember walking with Pam.
We wandered without always needing a destination. We sat in cafés, lingered over meals, crossed bridges over the Seine, and walked beside buildings older than our country. One evening we boarded a boat for a dinner cruise. As daylight disappeared, Paris began turning on its lights. Buildings glowed along the river. Bridges reflected against the water. Then the Eiffel Tower lit up.
I had waited years to see it, but sitting there I realized the best part wasn't finally being in Paris. It was that Pam was sitting beside me. There is a difference between seeing something beautiful and sharing something beautiful. I'm glad I waited long enough to see Paris with her.
From there, we returned to Venice, and this time we rode the gondola. We slipped beneath stone bridges and alongside buildings whose doors opened directly onto the water. The noisy Venice we'd been walking through became quiet. Pam sat beside me. Years earlier, we had wandered these same streets as newlyweds. Now we were back, older and more experienced, having lived more life and weathered more things. We knew one another more deeply. The gondola rocked gently beneath us, and I remember looking at her and smiling. Some experiences are worth waiting for. Maybe some are better because you waited.
Croatia brought another lesson. We joined a group of strangers and discovered that travel isn't only about places. Sometimes the people you meet become as memorable as the places you came to see. Strangers sat across the table from us, shared their stories, and a few days later felt like friends. We had gone to Croatia expecting to discover a country and came home remembering the people we'd discovered along the way.
Alaska made us feel small again. Mountains rose straight from the water. Glaciers towered in walls of ancient blue-white ice. Waterfalls dropped from cliffs and clouds wrapped themselves around mountain peaks. Then there were the whales. When one surfaced near us, conversations stopped because some things command attention without asking for it. Skagway gave us a glimpse of the Gold Rush past, and the scenic train carried us through mountains and valleys that seemed to grow more spectacular around every bend. By the time we finished in Vancouver, our cameras were full. So were we, not just from the cruise buffet, although that may also have been true. We were full from wonder.
Then life brought us closer to home again. We bicycled Minnesota's North Shore, visited Split Rock Lighthouse, and ate at Betty's Pies—because I believe historical landmarks and pie both deserve proper respect. We also got caught in a rainstorm while riding. Not drizzle. Rain. Within minutes, we were completely soaked.
There is a point at which you become so wet that avoiding puddles seems ridiculous. I wasn't laughing nearly as much then as I do when I tell the story now. That's another thing I've learned about traveling with someone you love: today's misery has an excellent chance of becoming tomorrow's favorite story.
But that Minnesota trip eventually became something more personal. I took Pam to Aurora, the town where I was born and spent my earliest years. Travel had always meant showing each other someplace new. This time, I was showing her someplace old. I showed her the house where I grew up and the cabin my father built.
Standing there brought back memories of my parents, my childhood, and pieces of myself I hadn't thought about in years. Those weren't simply old buildings. They belonged to a part of my story that existed long before Pam knew me. Taking her there felt like opening an old family album and inviting her inside. For years, we'd traveled forward together. This time, I had the privilege of taking her backward, and somehow that felt every bit as adventurous.
Now another anniversary is approaching, and when I look back at all those miles, I understand something I didn't fully understand when we started. The trips aren't our marriage. The marriage happens mostly in the ordinary days between them. It happens when we choose kindness instead of impatience, when we forgive each other, when we listen, laugh, and pray together. It happens when I reach for the same hand I've held thousands of times and still feel grateful that it's there.
The trips simply give us markers along the road. California led to Italy, then Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado, France, Venice again, Croatia, Alaska, and Minnesota. They were different places in different years, traveled by different versions of us, but always by the same two people choosing to continue the journey together.
We've brought home souvenirs, of course, but the ones I treasure most wouldn't fit in a suitcase. I carry the sound of sea lions barking at Fisherman's Wharf, the feeling of Pam's arms around me as we rode through Tuscany, the silence beneath Mount Rainier, and a Colorado sunrise turning the mountains gold. I remember Paris glowing along the Seine, a gondola slipping through Venice, strangers becoming friends in Croatia, the impossible blue of Alaskan glaciers, the laughter after a rain-soaked bicycle ride, and the feeling of standing beside my wife and showing her the house where the little boy I once was began his life.
Those are our real souvenirs—moments, feelings, stories, pieces of a marriage gathered one mile at a time.
Perhaps my favorite memory, though, happened before nearly all of them. A woman I had only recently met listened as I debated whether to fly to California to visit an old friend. "You'll regret not going," she said. She couldn't possibly have known what she was starting. Neither did I. But I understand those words differently now.
Life rarely announces which moments are going to matter. Sometimes you simply have to go. Buy the ticket, take the road, visit the friend, ride the bicycle, get on the boat, walk across the bridge. Say yes to the adventure.
After all these miles, I've learned that the Eiffel Tower really is magnificent. Tuscany really is that beautiful. Mount Rainier can leave you speechless. Alaska can make you feel wonderfully small. Venice at sunset sometimes doesn't seem real. But none of those places is where the magic truly lives.
The magic is looking over and seeing Pam beside me. It's her hand finding mine on a street we've never walked before. It's the two of us laughing when the plan goes wrong. It's sharing a beautiful view and knowing that years later, when one of us asks, "Do you remember...?" the other one will.
The destination is wonderful, but the person beside you is what makes the miles unforgettable. And whenever Pam reaches over, takes my hand, smiles, and says, "Let's go," I already know my answer.
That's Pam.
And I'm still saying yes.
