Bucks
John & Ruth Moyer Around World Trip, Jim Stieber
Dear Friends,
Good morning. Two of my Quakertown friends recently gave a travel show to the Milford Township Historical Society. But before I write about Ruth and John Moyer’s spectacular trip around the world, I wanted to tell you about a memorial service held in Newtown a few weeks ago.
James Stieber died suddenly on Christmas Eve. He was only 58. Jim, Mighty Betsy and I’ve been singing in the Philadelphia Singers Chorale for many years. It is the resident chorus for the Philadelphia Orchestra so it’s a real treat to be associated with them. Last summer, we enjoyed a round of golf.
Jim lived in Newtown all of his life and sang in choruses throughout the Philadelphia area. He appeared at numerous concerts at various venues including the Kimmel Center, Academy of Music and Carnegie Hall. Jim was also an excellent trombonist. A carpenter by trade, he was a cabinetmaker in his free time. During his days in heavy construction, Jim walked on steel girders high above the city.
But his passion was music. Ten days before his death, Jim sang in the chorus with the Philadelphia Orchestra as it performed the Messiah. At his memorial service, Jim’s brass choir played and 36 members of the Philadelphia Singers sang three of our favorite anthems: “How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place,” “Panis Angelicus,” and “Ave Verum.” It was just beautiful.
Jim loved golf, bowling, cooking and wine. He was a kind, happy man who left his mother, three brothers and two sisters behind. We’ll miss him.
And now to the Moyer’s trip around the world.
Two weeks ago, Ruth and John gave an entertaining talk and slide show about their 25-day trip around the world. About 30 members of the Milford Township Historical Society heard the Moyer’s describe their whirlwind tour of eleven United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization designated locations. To visit the eleven UNESCO sites, the Moyer’s traveled to 10 countries on four continents.
A 757 Boeing jetliner that normally seats 200 passengers was retrofitted for the 80 travelers on the trip. “Everyone had fabulous accommodations,” John began.
“There were
three British pilots, three lecturers (art, architecture, and politics), an
emergency room physician, chef, and three guides who were fluent in all the
languages, and eight flight attendants,” Ruth added. That’s an impressive
staff. She should know. Ruth was a flight attendant for
“We flew around the world from east to west so we experienced very long days,” John continued. “There was lots of walking.” The trip was action packed but tiring for the passengers who ranged in age from 30 to 85.
Mikki Smith, a Milford resident and computer expert, handled the slide show for the Moyer’s. It began in Cuzco, Peru, the land of the Incas. At 8,500 feet, Machu Picchu (Peru) stood out because it was a place of refuge and a citadel fortress for the Indians who lived there. The next spot was Easter Island, a Polynesian island off the coast of Chile.
And then, many thousands of miles west, it was the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, followed by Angkor, Cambodia. The next destination was Lhasa, Tibet. At 12,000 feet, it is the home of the Dalai Lama who was exiled from China 50 years ago. “We took high altitude sickness pills,” John observed.
The Moyer’s visited the Taj Mahal in India, one of the wonders of the world. John told the residents that the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, built the tomb for his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal. One of the Milford residents got a smile from the audience when he wondered what the emperor did for his first wife?
The next stop was the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro on the African continent, followed by Egypt and the Pyramids at Giza. Mikki Smith showed a picture of John standing near the great Sphinx prompting a resident to laugh, “Which one is the Sphinx?”
The last destination was the Medina of Fez, Morocco. We saw photos of fish being washed on the floor of a huge market. “The Q Mart’s way ahead of the Morocco fish market,” John quipped.
I asked him about the trip’s cost. John declined to divulge the price of the 25 days around the world. “But if we’d taken 11 separate trips, the cost would have exceeded the price we paid,” he said. The Moyer’s traveled 32,000 miles between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. And they crossed the equator four times in addition to the Greenwich Meridian and the International Dateline.
As the Moyer’s reflected on their trip, they offered this thought about the people they encountered: “We share a common humanity,” the Moyer’s said. “We are more alike than we are different.”
Based in Seattle, Washington, Starquest Expeditions runs two of these worldwide trips each year. At journey’s end, it informed the passengers that they’d consumed 314 liters of wine, 35 liters of vodka, 97 bottles of champagne, 21 bottles of whisky, 12 bottles of gin, 3 bottles of brandy, and 118 cans of beer.
I didn’t ask John if all that booz equated either to a 25-day party or a colossal hangover.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith