Dottie Peacock was hooked on travel ever since she left home her senior year of high school to visit her eldest sister in Frankfurt, Germany.
“I just fell in love with the whole experience,” Peacock said. “It set the travel bug.”
That was nearly 60 years ago, but it may as well have been yesterday: The bug is still alive and well in Peacock to today.
When she spoke with The Journal on a sunny Thursday afternoon, she had just returned from a trip to California, and mentioned plans to soon visit New York, followed by a trip to northern Italy and Paris in spring.
The subject of the interview that afternoon concerned travel, but not the kind that’s planned. Instead, we talked about travel under spontaneous circumstances.
Peacock recently won an all-inclusive trip to South America, a prize she had a 1 in 114,286 chance in winning, said Kelsey Knoedler Perri, the director of public relations at Road Scholar, the travel company that awarded the trip.
It’s Road Scholar’s 50th anniversary, Perri explained, so it gifted trips to seven unassuming winners across the globe, one trip per continent. A couple from Washington is headed to Antarctica.
Peacock won Road Scholar’s South American Odyssey trip, which lasts 19 days, 18 nights. It’s all-inclusive for two travelers, airfare and all, and stops in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Machu Picchu, to name a few highlights.
“I thought it was a scam,” said Peacock of the package she received in the mail. “I didn’t even do anything with it for a day or two, but I got curious.”
Curiosity led her to Road Scholar’s website, where she found a phone number and dialed an agent.
“She verified yes, it’s true, and this person is waiting to hear from you,” Peacock laughed. “I guess I’m still having a hard time believing it … it’s sort of a miracle. And on top of it, I soon celebrate my 80th birthday.”
A few years ago, Peacock and her granddaughter traveled to Paris with Road Scholar, her one and only trip with the company she remembers as “superb.”
Tessa, Peacock’s granddaughter, had long wished to visit the City of Lights. Growing up, Peacock would read Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline stories to her, which are set in Paris and “old school and wonderful.”
“She’d say, ‘When are you taking me to Paris?’ and we finally made that happen,” Peacock said.
As for South America, Peacock said she’s still deciding on who to bring along, since it’s a trip for two.
“That’s been an interesting procedure,” Peacock said. “It’s a three-week trip. It can be hard, even with your best friends, your favorite people, because you might not be the best roommates or travelers.”
A good traveler is “not too critical,” she said.
“They’re wanting, expecting, hoping for new experience. It’s not always guaranteed it’ll be great or wonderful, but just sort of ready to take on whatever happens and make the best of it.”
She’s leaning toward bringing along a friend and former Crow Canyon coworker, since “we’ve traveled together and it works well.”
It was the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, she said, that brought her to the Cortez area from Texas in 1988. At Crow Canyon, she up designed, developed and escorted trips – mostly to the American Southwest, but a few each year were international.
On one Crow Canyon trip, she and a group went to Syria shortly after a Lebanese prime minister had been assassinated.
When they arrived and were walking down the streets, locals would ask where they were from. They’d also thank them, she said.
“Thank you for coming, thank you for meeting us and seeing who we really are,” said Peacock, remembering what locals had said to them.
One person said, “Thank you for you,” which Peacock took as a thank you “for being the person you are who will come to our country.”
Peacock retired from Crow Canyon 14 years ago, and has “had the good fortune to have the wherewithal to keep doing some traveling.”
Though Paris is undoubtedly her favorite city, Mongolia is the greatest place she’s been. She remembers it as “snowy and windy,” and how the nomadic people there “were always happy.”
When thinking of traveling, Peacock said she remembers the “warmth and feeling of other people, and seeing how they live.”
Though we have our own specialness here, she said, it’s important to get out and see other things, to travel.
“It’s taught me so much about other cultures, other religions, other ways of operating. Of thinking, of playing, of suffering through life or joyfully skipping it,” she said. “More and more Americans are traveling, but of course, as a whole, we’re much more isolated. You learn so much by getting outside of your own circle.”
Peacock said she’s excited for the trip in November with Road Scholar, and to revisit a few places she went 20, 30 years ago now. Though she spent a month in Chile just last year, she’s never visited Argentina, Brazil or stood before the beautiful Iguazu Falls.
Looking ahead, she hopes to visit Australia and Scotland, to “start hitting my cultural references.”
“Sometimes I struggle, because it’s wonderful here,” she said. “In earlier days when I wasn’t traveling as much, I was always out hiking and scouting and looking at archaeological sites, exploring canyons. Sometimes I’m like oh, do I really want to go.”
This summer, she’s looking forward to being in Cortez and enjoying the beauty this area has to offer.
“It’s a good life when you like both options,” she said.
