wander project Bangkok

I was doing a project in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, on my last trip to KL, my parents were also in Bangkok. I decided to stop by Bangkok on the way home and spend a long weekend with them, and I knew I was going to have to pay extra for my airline ticket. Except, adding a leg, and a layover, reduced the airfare by nearly 1000 US dollars, my boss said to go ahead and book the ticket. Here I was out of pocket planning to put in my own money. Instead, I saved the company money! There were several reasons to stop by and see my folks. Not the least of which was that in that period, they were often in Thailand for 2 or 3 months during the winter in Indiana.

My parents were snowbirds! (My grandparents were also snowbirds. They would leave Wisconsin in November and travel down to Florida; then they would return to Wisconsin in April. Snowbird is a US phrase that means something that winters where it is warm (Florida or other places). Mom and dad had become snowbirds. The other reason was more selfish, and I was also avoiding the cold weather in Indiana. Dad was working at the IPST (where he was a consultant) during the day, so Mom, Miss Hart (long-time family friend), and I wandered around. We ended up going to lunch on the river, which was a lot of fun. On the weekend dad didn’t have to work.

He wanted to get a USB key on Saturday, so we ended up going to the tech mall in Bangkok. I didn’t buy anything, but dad wanted the USB key. Had I known then what I know now, I would have stopped dad from buying that key. I cleaned out his desk at home after he passed away, and he had more than 30 USB keys, all of them with ten pictures, 100 pictures nowhere near capacity. USB keys, like videotapes and slides, do die eventually. Then we went off walking around Bangkok. Walking was a tradition that I had previously with my grandfather. It was wonderful to have the chance to walk around Bangkok with dad. It’s funny how things become more important over time. I will never forget our walk that day!

tropical flowers are amazing