Making a Statement About Travel Notes

The first time I kept a travel diary was when I was 7 years old and heading by train to California. The loose-leaf record of that journey, bound and worn, lies on my desk, the serendipitous discovery from a recent office move.

Glancing at its pages, I find that I was both verbose and terse that summer, depending on how soon I wanted to get to the beach.

I used drawings and outside references with abandon: “Went to famous San Diego Zoo. Liked it a lot. For further information see San Diego Zoo guidebook.”

This daily jotting of facts and impressions was not my idea. It was the promise extracted by my parents when they let me go West with my grandmother.

Since that blissful summer, I have always kept notes on my travels: sometimes in notebooks, sometimes in my calendar, sometimes on the backs--and fronts--of hotel envelopes. Often, in recent years, on a small tape recorder from which I later transcribe.

For me, the recorder is an essential jog to memory, a device backed up by photographs, menus, concert programs, business cards, shopping receipts and matchbook covers that give restaurant addresses.

Now I have an even broader mirror on my travels--the monthly summary statement of my Visa credit card. This is computerized proof that you can charge a trip, even one down memory lane. Mixed in with payments to carpet cleaners, plumbers and the IRS are more pleasurable names, such as French Rail and Foyle’s books in London. England also brought memory ticklers such as Welcome Break Petrol near Leicester (gasoline and apples for the road) and The Angel hotel in Bury St. Edmunds.

Then there was the East Coast trip that started with the admission to Winterthur gardens in Delaware and its rich collection of American crafts, folk art and furniture. After a day at Winterthur, I had dinner in colonial candlelight at historic Chadds Ford Inn in Pennsylvania, not far from the Brandywine Museum--bright with Wyeth family art--and the Brandywine Battlefield from the Revolutionary War.

It is clear that I went on to New York City because of the luncheon tab from the spiffy Brighton Grill on Third Avenue (quite reasonable for Manhattan) and a splurge at a silk-sweater sale at Henri Bendel.

An Amtrak charge to Washington, D.C., was followed by dinner in the John Hay Room at the cozy Hay-Adams Hotel, just across Lafayette Park from the White House. The room’s lounge, with fireplace, is a capital gathering spot.

Among the charges of summer, I happily recall a seafood supper at Basil’s restaurant near the white-frame library in Provincetown, Mass., at the tip of Cape Cod. Two night’s later it was the Captain’s Table in Hyannis. (Walter Cronkite was at the next table; Michael Dukakis walked by.)

In Maine I had bran-and-nut muffins for breakfast at the Fisherman’s Wharf in Boothbay Harbor, and a top-notch lobster feast at the East Wind Inn on a handsome spit of land overlooking Tenants Harbor. The guest rooms at the inn were tempting, but I was traveling by sailboat.

Then there was the quickie supper in Boston, between planes at Logan Airport. A friend and I caught the airport bus to the harbor and the shuttle boat to downtown. A swift walk took us to one of my favorite American eateries: the Union Oyster House, Boston’s oldest restaurant and just steps from Quincy Market. My friend raved about the oysters; I swear by the zesty clam chowder and 1800s atmosphere.

From autumn in northern Arizona, I see tabs from three art galleries in Sedona (The Barn, Orlosky, Wolfwalker) and one from a leatherworks called The Hyde-Out in the Tlaquepaque cluster of shops. The paintings are as original as the brimmed suede hat and tooled belt that I bought. When it comes to leather, I know what I like.

Oh yes. And there’s a payment to the Gila Bend Justice Court. Who would have thought I’d get caught speeding through nothing?

Yet it stands as part of the record--the only travel expenditure that I regret.