Where No Pickleball
Has Gone Before
Globetrotting pickleball
enthusiasts Tony and
Susan Childs take the
game to the North Pole.
By Alice Tym
42
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T
ony and Susan Childs of
Del Mar, California, have
led extraordinary lives
and are self-proclaimed
“most grateful people alive.” Tony’s
father was well-traveled, and Tony
remembers being at the Long
Beach harbor with him when he
said, “I wish we could get on that
ship and go!”
In 1976, Tony and Susan did just
that, except it was a trip across
the Sahara, down through West
Africa, across to East Africa
and on down to South Africa.
They bathed about every 10
days and slept in sleeping
bags in army tents for five
months. Tony says Susan is
a real trooper and that most
American women wouldn’t have
been able to do what she did.
In 1978, they crossed Central
Asia for five months and in 1979,
cruised on the Omo River in
Ethiopia. Treks in Mongolia and
Tibet immediately followed their
daughters’ high school graduations.
The ’Stans came next. Tony