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I’m up at 4:00 am this morning jetlagged from our flights to Helsinki, Finland.  Breakfast at our charming hotel doesn’t begin on Sundays until 8. It is a perfect time for this blog post.

My wife Kristin and I are travelers. What’s over the horizon has been a motivator for all of our, soon to be, forty-four years together.

Her family are card players, so by osmosis, we are too. The games are not complicated, although her parents played bridge. The family rallies around social games like: poker, hand & foot, and golf. Games that promote table chatter, discussions about any random subject, and, of course, the accusations that Kristin’s mom has cards up her sleeve.

As Kristin and I have collected destinations on all seven continents, to pass the time in between flights or any dead time, we always have cards.

We have taken turns being champions of whatever locations we’ve played: airports like Huston, Paris, or Osaka. A myriad of hotel lobbies and even the ferry between Buenos Aries and Montevideo.

Invariably, people will never ask you what you are doing on your phone. We all know the answer is wasting time, mostly. But folks will, on occasion, stop and ask us what game we are playing. In that regard, cards are an international language. A rememberence of the past. Warm memories of fun and friendship spread across a table top.

Yesterday, a gentleman approached our table as we played cards at Milwaukee’s Mitchell Field Airport. He didn’t ask what we were playing. He simply shared what a refreshing sight it was to see two people spending time together rather than staring at their phones.

It was an excellent way to begin our Scandinavian adventure, and he was right.