Where In the World Is Ilene?: My Wish List

Happy New Year to one and all!

Bill Handel and Ilene toasting in Odessa.

When this article appears on Sunday, December 28th, I will be in Egypt visiting the Pyramids of Giza, one of my long time dreams. I am joining Bill and Marjorie Handel, their family and friends, on a trip to Israel to celebrate Barbara and Pamela Handel’s B’not Mitzvah on Mt. Masada. From Israel we will fly into Egypt to see the Pyramids of Giza, the Valley of the Kings and Queens, Abal Simbal Aswan, Luxor and a Nile River cruise. Egypt has been high on my “wish list” for many years and I am very excited that I’m able to share this experience with my dear friends, Bill and Marjorie and their family.

I realize that travel is not high on anyone’s list this holiday season. I understand. However, life goes on and we have to be optimistic and be thankful for what we have. I am thankful that I have been able to travel and see the world. But most of all I am thankful for good health, a wonderful family and many good friends. With the support of family and friends, we will get through this difficult time.

Every year at this time I make a “wish list,” for places that I want to visit in the coming years. I first started making my list as the millennium approached; I wanted to expand my travel horizons, seeking out different cultures and seeing how people lived in other parts of the world. I was a sociology/psychology major in college, and always enjoyed reading about other cultures, mostly in non-westernized countries. So I’m continuing my tradition and thinking positive. I’m not ready to stop traveling. There are still so many places I want to see.

I am happy to say, that since 2000, I have been to all but one of the places on my original “wish list”: I traveled from Beijing, China to St. Petersburg, Russia, aboard the Trans-Siberian Railroad; I climbed the Great Wall of China and visited Emperor Xin’s great army of terra cotta warriors; I cruised down the Amazon; I walked among the penguins on the Antarctic peninsula; and I visited Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park. When I visit Egypt the end of this month I will have completed that original list.

Marjorie Handel and Ilene, cold but happy at Neko Harbor.

Every year I stand in front of my world map and look at all the places I haven’t been, and dream. Every year my list changes.

Ilene Cox, Cal and Marti in Lima, Peru.

After my original list I added Cuba, Peru, India, Southern Africa, The Galapagos Islands and Tahiti. By 2006 I had completed that list and started a new wish list.

Marjorie Handel and Ilene resting at the Salt Flats, Sacred Valley, Peru.

The list I started that year was a bit more exotic. I added Chinese New Year in Hong Kong, Viet Nam and Cambodia, the Russian Far East, Bhutan, Tibet and Lapland. I also added the Polar Bear migration in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada.

I’m still working on Bhutan, Tibet and Lapland, but I did make it to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year plus visited the fabulous temples in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Redlands Travel group in front of Anghkor Wat, Cambodia.

The Russian Far East was great fun and I ‘m probably one of the few people who have actually visited the islands of Little and Big Diomede off the coast of Alaska. I also got to see the Polar Bear Migration in October, 2006.

The best part of these trips is that I get to travel with family and friends. My sister and her husband have been with me in China, Peru and Russia.

Marti, Ilene, Cal, Heather and Erin in Moskow.

Between semesters and in the summer, my daughter, Erin managed to join me on my cross-country trip to Yellowstone National Park and Mt. Rushmore,

Ilene and Erin at Mount Rushmore.

on a Russian river cruise, and China. Heather, my oldest daughter, also is fond of traveling joined me in Ecuador for a trip to the Galapagos Islands,

Heather, Ilene and Galapagos Tortoises.

Tahiti and for the riverboat cruise in Russia. And the three of us all managed to be together in Israel for Heather’s wedding in November, 2007, along with my friends Marjorie Handel and Carolyn Groves and my cousins, Irwin and Josephine Furman.

So, the moral of this travel log is--count your blessings and dare to dream. Enjoy making your own wish list--you never know what tomorrow will bring. Have a happy and healthy holiday season.