He was standing in line at the airport in New Delhi, India, a few weeks ago when the big announcement came.
“Are you Mr. Edward Reynolds from Woodland Hills, California?” asked the airport manager. Reynolds nodded, yes, he was.
“Would you please step out of line? We’ve been waiting for you.”
Uh, oh, he thought. What’d they find in my luggage now?
“Congratulations,” the airport manager said. “You just went over two million miles flying with United Airlines! Can I get a picture with you?”
Meet Ed Reynolds, a retired United States Air Force Lt. Col., who has visited all 193 member states in the United Nations. This last visit to Sikkim and Darjeeling raised the total of land based and small island countries he’s stepped foot in to 322.
There are a few islands off Norway he’s eyeing next, but they’re hard to get to so it’s going to be a challenge.
He’s a young 88. He has time.
This travel lust began when he was 10 and his stepfather took out the back seats of the family Kaiser automobile so Ed, his younger brother and the family dog had a place to bounce around while his stepfather and mom sat up front as they drove from Connecticut across Canada all the way down to Mexico on vacation.
“Every other night we stayed in a motel; the other nights we pitched a tent, but if we thought there were snakes around we’d tie jungle hammocks to the trees and sleep in them.”
Not exactly 5-star accommodations, but to a kid venturing out to see the world for the first time, it was fascinating.
When his stepfather’s job required the family to move to Irving, Texas, he piled them into an Airstream and drove to a little farm he and his wife had bought.
“My mom turned the farm into a trailer park,” Ed said. “Instead of selling the Airstream, she rented it out. We kept adding more trailers and she converted the stalls in the barn into little guest rooms for friends visiting the people with trailers. I was driving at 13, picking up all…
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