Back when vacations meant filling the jalopy-du jour with widgets and camping gear, the major stress involved was whether the car would make it all the way to the city limits without breaking down.

My dear bride, the saintly Susan, and I no longer have kids to load, we rarely go camping, and the vehicles we own are actually dependable, but a trip we have been planning for the last five years is providing its own kind of stress.

Since 2005, which by coincidence was the year of our 35th wedding anniversary, Susan and I have talked, planned, dreamed and fretted over what we would be doing this year.

We decided all those long five years ago, that this year, the 40th anniversary of our nuptials, we would do something extraordinary!

Extraordinary is a wonderful — and in this case a little scary — word. It describes something rare, exceptional, glorious and, almost by definition, something that really truly works.

In this particular event it also means something romantic, memorable and expensive.

When we began talking about what would constitute "extraordinary" and, would also meet the aforementioned qualifications, Susan and I realized we both really wanted to see Italy, which is just about as reasonable as saying, "We want to see the United States." It can't be done! So what specifically do we want to see in this place called Italy, and how do we make it happen?

Actually, at least where I'm involved, Italy comes with a lot of superficial knowledge, and a great burden of underlying ignorance.

I have been fascinated by Italy since I was in single digits. Despite what my kids might say, I am in fact not old enough to remember imperial Rome, but I am well-enough read to know I want to see the Coliseum, the Forum and the Pantheon.

Susan and I both want to see the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and Trevi Fountain. I want to walk on the Apian Way, see a Roman aqueduct and find out if Italians know how to make pizza.

We also want to go to Florence, which is named Firenze if you want to find it on an Italian map. There we want to walk across the Ponte Vecchio, visit the Duomo and Susan is eager to see "the David," but I fear we might just have to skip that. I hate it when I blush in public.

In late September we will take a flight that will route us from California to Frankfurt, Germany, to get us to Italy. We have reserved rooms in hotels we have only seen on the Internet, in pictures that could be a decade old or of some other entirely different structure.

We are scheduling tours based on descriptions, again, on the Internet.

For all we know we have reserved a tour of Tuscany in the back of a goat cart being driven by a drunken member of a terrorist organization, who took the job as a cover while he hides out from Interpol.

There are also the little questions, such as, how do you say, "Excuse me, where is the restroom?" in Italian.

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Beyond that, every dollar I will be spending won't be dollars, but euros, which means I have only the vaguest idea of what anything costs, and it will probably scare me when I find out.

I should also say I am looking forward to this trip with all of the unabated enthusiasm of a 6-year-old boy waiting for Christmas morning. The fact is Susan and I don't know what we are getting into, and that is a perfect way to celebrate

40 years together.

We didn't know what we were getting into then either, but it has been one extraordinary ride.

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