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Vivid memories of adventures and traveling help with grief

Adventures while traveling with your loved ones create special memories.

These memories plus the artifacts and souvenirs from such trips are very helpful in coping with grief because they are so vivid. You will easily revisit all the detailed happy moments of that adventure together.

All travel is an adventure, but there are special trips. One of mine is traveling with my beloved Baheej to Ushuaia, on the island of Tera del Fuego, the land of fire, at the tip of Argentina. It's the southernmost town in the world, very near the Antarctic Circle.

It was a September 11 and we flew from Buenes Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile. When we landed, it was getting dark, and we got a taxi to go to our hotel. But right outside the airport, we encountered riots in the road with burning tires. Yikes. People started throwing rocks at our taxi, cracking the back window. It was terrifying. It was not our Sept 11, but the anniversary of when they kicked out their brutal dictator Peron.

They restage the rebellion every year. And foreign travelers are not welcome that day.

The driver turned around and took us back to the airport where we thought we could stay for the night and take the first flight out the next morning. But they were closing the airport for the night. What to do?

The United Airlines crew rescued us by taking us with them in their private van on the back roads, bypassing the riot, and got us safely to our hotel in the city. Then we spent a couple interesting and pleasant days in Santiago. Baheej explored the house of the famous poet Neruda and I went back there with him to see it. It was an eccentric place and Neruda had a stream running through the inside of his house.

And then we decided to head to Ushuaia. So we flew to the southern tip of Chile to take the ferry across to Tera del Fuego. The ferry port was in a darling harbor town with a very Scandinavian-type hotel. We had a great dinner and restful night. We took the early ferry across to Argentina.

When we got to the other side, we found several cars and people waiting to pick people up from the ferry. But no station house, no taxis, no nada.

We were shocked and approached one family to find out how to get to our destination. We found out that their own town was even many miles away, and our real destination was three hours more from there.

They were sweet and took us with them back to their home, very hospitable and nice people. With our limited Spanish we communicated that we needed a taxi or bus down to Ushuaia. They brought a cousin over who spoke some English. The upshot was that there were no taxis, no train, no rental cars, no buses, no airport. But the cousin offered to drive us there. So we agreed on a price and off we went an hour later.

Well, It was winter in South America, opposite season as here. And our destination was on the other side of the mountains. Turned out that Terra del Fuego is a mountainous island. The first part of the journey was smooth and flat. Then we started climbing up the mountain headed to the Gerabaldi Pass; it started snowing.

We were on a treacherous and narrow road through this very high mountain pass. Ushuaia is at the bottom on other side of the pass. This was the most frightening experience I've ever had. I was in the back seat and huddled face down, deathly afraid of heights, especially this one. Except to peek now and then, I couldn't bear to look out. The road was snow packed and slippery, no guard rails. I was never so scared in all my life, before or after. It was a curvy road and we were at times sliding.

Eventually, a couple harrowing hours later, we got down off the mountains and to our hotel. We paid our driver ($400) and tried to regain our bearings and nerves. The hotel was lovely. Ushuaia is a frontier harbor town, and a free-trade zone, no taxes or tariffs. The town had very wild feel to it, probably still does.

Next day, we went on a boat out into the Beagle Channel and saw scores of sea lions. Each rock island was occupied by a huge male with his nose up in the air and surrounded by his harem of many females. Quite a sight.

And the day after, we walked around the village, then went up a chair lift to a château and restaurant in the foothills. (That height was nothing compared to Garabaldi Pass.) Then once up on top, we took a horse -drawn sleigh around the area to see beautiful views of the town from above.

Later, back down in the town, we found some of our exact Finnish crystal glasses in a general store for a small fraction of their real value. They were in their original boxes, all packed for mailing or travel. We bought a lot and brought them back to the USA. I think of this trip every time I use them. They must have been there for years - the boxes were covered with dust on a forgotten shelf in the store. Must have been unloaded from some European freighter and forgotten. A find!

It was a general store such as we had here in the USA years ago. I was in one or two surviving stores in my Minnesota hometown and a nearby village when I was a child - clothes, food, candy, household utensils and supplies, cloth, barrels of grains and nuts, all sorts of tools, on and on. This time it was booty left by some long ago cargo ship for a general store in a free-trade zone at the tip of Argentina.

So, the point is: Adventure travel makes for vivid memories, and such memories are a big help in coping with long-term grief. In this case, I have very clear images of dear Baheej sitting and writing by the harborview dining room windows of our hotel, and riding with him under fur blankets in the one-horse snow sleigh, and standing in the wind with him on a boat in the Beagle channel looking at sea lions, and other good times we had together in that unique place.

However, we did agree that the next time we will fly straight to Ushuaia direct Buenes Aires - no more snow packed mountains, no more ferries to the unknown. But it was an adventure! And its memories have helped me deal with long-term grief.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a Ph.D. in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College, and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Ander

son-Kleif-Susan/.

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