Prior to celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary, my wife Mpho and I came across an ad for the Blue Train, South Africa’s coveted five-star hotel on wheels. We promised that for our tenth anniversary we would take our daughter Nyaniso to her grandparents, and then spend a week riding the luxury rail. The Blue Train is quite expensive, we said, so the five years would give us ample time to pay for the elaborate gift.

Well, we’ve been married 15 years, have two kids, two cars and a mortgage. We’ve lived in this country as well as South Africa and have conjured up memories to last a lifetime. Yet the trains I’ve ridden have been labeled MARC, Virginia Rail Express and Amtrak.

We have continually put off the excursion, and any money saved has gone toward more immediate concerns.

We recently said that we would celebrate our 20th anniversary aboard the Blue Train, but -- although my wife insists otherwise -- that gift will likely never come. Yet my wife learned from the “time flies” experience well before me; she insisted that at least one night each week we get a babysitter for the kids and go out and do something fun.

And we do.

You might say we’ve spread out our Blue Train moments over weeknights in Northern Virginia. It’s not the South African countryside, but it still makes for great memories.