A nice idea in theory is no guarantee for what happens in reality

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ~ Samuel Johnson

Yesterday we had the perfect day to exemplify the discrepancy between imagination and reality. We had read in the paper that a wilderness preserve outside of the city had a big celebration and the description sounded like the most fun to be had ever. Since we had contemplated visiting the park anyway, due to fond memories of a visit 35 years ago, it seemed like a slam dunk.


After walking around so much on the flea market, we were already a bit tired on the on set, getting there appeared much harder with overcrowded buses, late subways and waiting outside of the worst subway station for a bus for an eternity. By the time we made it to the park, we were already tired. It had been very cool in the morning and had looked like it might rain and there were thunderstorms in the forecast. I thought that would be perfect, because nobody would go on such a day and we would not have to deal with sun and crowds and the like. It appears that our weather information had been off, since it was quite warm and sunny, resulting in lots of people everywhere and us lugging around our sweaters and rainjackets.


The children were not really that excited about the black, hairy potbelly pigs running around - and to be honest, they are kind of ugly. The wolves were sleeping, the bears nowhere to be found, the moose dad was munching away leafs, refusing to give us any clue where his recently born moose baby twins were hiding. Johanna and Sophie loved feeding all the deer, but it is something we have done many times before, so not quite worth the huge effort. I have to say though, that there is something so enchanting and endearing about deer, they are so beautiful and shy and lovely.


Then again, we were there to see the medieval market, which turned out rather small and not exciting either, since we have seen much better ones. Trying to make the best of it, we all had a picnic of the big bag of cherries we had bought at a road side stand and even those were not exciting. When the supposedly awesome show finally started, we were unable to see anything due to the crowds and decided to head somewhere else in the park.


Johanna waited in line for a really long time to have her face painted and the lady did a fantastic job on making her a tiger; a very sad tiger though at bedtime when the paint needed to come off. The hall of crafts was very disappointing and the stations to make your own crafts had been packed up. We thought another visit to the wolves would cheer us up, but they had gone off into the wild and only one lone wolf was to be seen a distance away.



So we left the park and made our way back home, which involved more waiting for crowded public transportation, and once we got home, we were all completely exhausted. Even on days that don't turn out the way we envision them, usually at least I bring home a plethora of great shots, but unfortunately my big camera had mysteriously drained it's battery and the little one had a tough time with the dark animals and the high contrasts of forestry.

On the way home we came up with a lot of things we should have done instead of visiting the park, because in retrospect we are all smarter. My children would say this is Murphy's law, when our expectations are high, we are bound to be disappointed, and of course in general reality of travel hardly lives up to what we envision. The best moments always come unplanned, spontaneous and without expectations weighing them down. It is silly to think every day on such a long trip will be memorable and special. At the same time, if we would have had a low key day spent with games and the park, it probably would have been very special in it's own way.