A LIFE IN MOTION: DAVID AND DARLENE BLAIR’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH TRAVEL

by Shanon Weaver

Some couples collect souvenirs. David and Darlene Blair collect experiences—not stacked on shelves, but rather in memories. Mist rising off Niagara Falls. Mountains they never saw while growing up in Texas. The quiet joy of discovering, again and again, that the world is both bigger and kinder than expected.

The couple met at Lamar University in Southeast Texas, both shaped by the same flat, humid landscape. “We’ve got pretty deep roots in Texas,” David says, noting family history he can trace back to the 1840s. They built careers—David as an accountant for 40 years, Darlene in education for 30—and a life together that eventually carried them from Houston to North Texas, where they now live near their son and grandson.

They’ve never been strangers to traveling, but somewhere along the way, it became more than a pastime—it became part of who they are.

One of their more recent group trips took them to Niagara Falls, a destination they had long hoped to visit. What they found there surprised them.

“It was just a beautiful area,” Darlene says. “Everything was so pretty and clean and fresh. It was springtime, so everything was blooming.”

And like many first trips, it reshaped what they thought they knew.

“You have to sort of see it to believe it,” David adds.

They went under the falls (of course!), rode through tunnels, explored the town, and even took in sweeping views from above. What stayed with them, though, wasn’t just the spectacle—it was the sense of discovery, and the realization that some places are far more than the postcard version you expect.

That sense of discovery is at the heart of why they travel.

“For me, it’s seeing new places that you’ve only seen in pictures,” Darlene says. “But a lot more than that, I think it’s exploring the people and the culture…you learn that people are pretty much the same. And for the most part, people are very friendly and very accepting.”

David agrees, but with a twist shaped by geography.

Growing up in Southeast Texas, where “the closest thing to a hill or a mountain is a rice levee,” he developed a deep appreciation for landscapes that felt completely foreign to his upbringing. “My favorite places to go are the ones with mountainous areas,” he says. “I love the mountains. And we just don’t have them here.”

That contrast between where they started and where they’ve been is part of the magic. They’ve taken bus trips, flown across the country, and are now preparing for a Rocky Mountain journey that includes a train ride through some of the most dramatic scenery in the country. They’ve explored Branson, Missouri, and are looking ahead to destinations like Albuquerque—and maybe even Hawaii or Europe someday.

But ask them what stands out most, and it’s not the itinerary. It’s the people.

“It’s not just the people that we go with,” David says. “It’s the people that we meet…how they react to things, and what their interests are.”

Travel, for the Blairs, is a shared experience—both between the two of them and with the wider world. It’s conversation with strangers. It’s noticing the way food changes from place to place. It’s stepping outside routine.

“You just get away and leave your daily routine behind,” David says. “It is really fun.”

There’s also something deeper, something that comes with time. Now in their mid-70s, they are acutely aware of the value of continuing to explore.

Darlene puts it plainly—and powerfully, thinking about the people who make those experiences possible:

“It touches me when they make the extra effort to work with people who still want to go and do…but they need a walker, or a wheelchair, or a scooter,” she says. “That they’re willing to still let me be part of traveling—even though I may need special considerations.”

That perspective reframes travel not as a luxury, but as access—to joy, to connection, to a life still unfolding.

And perhaps that’s the real lesson of David and Darlene Blair. Travel isn’t about checking boxes or chasing landmarks. It’s about staying curious. Staying open. Staying in motion—together.

Or, as they might put it, with the quiet confidence of people who have lived it:

“See the places. Meet the people. Take the trip.”

Because the world, it turns out, is still waiting.