Finally Getting Back “Out and About”
We had several trips in the last year of so all planned and ready to go: Scotland, again, another cruise, a conference further away, a land trip to Iceland, a trip to NYC to see our son, daughter-in-law and their kids.
My mom had been living with us for the last 15 years. In the early days, she could stay by herself. Later, when we had a dog, a friend would walk the dog and check in with mom. Then the dog died so the friend was just checking in with mom. Then, my mom needed more and more help so I started canceling stuff and there hasn’t been any travel since a cruise out of Amsterdam in 2024.
Ever-hopeful, I bought tickets again for the Edinburgh Tattoo in August 2026.
My mom turned 102 in October and died in November 2025. There’s a password-protected post about that here.
Fortunately, our son, daughter-in-law and their kids were able to come for a Thanksgiving brunch the weekend before she died.
We were able to go see them for Christmas in NYC – and I managed to break my thumb on the way back.
But, I digress – the thumb is healing nicely and we now have 3 trips coming up with discussions about another cruise and/or a trip to China.
So, we’re actually going to the Tattoo again; the AGO Convention; a cruise from Miami to London via Portugal, Spain and France; and a land trip to Slovakia and Hungary.
Temporary plans:
BTW: If you need to know that pw it’s nana.
Heading to Amsterdam
It’s July 3, 2024 and it looks like we’re finally going to take that cruise to Norway. Here’s a summary of how this trip unfolded:
We started before Covid with this weirdness:
August 2021 RCL Serenade of the Seas from Seattle to Alaska – changed from September 2021: Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas Alaska Southbound from Seward with Cruisetour because Canada wouldn’t let us in due to Covid 🙁 …which was lifted and shifted from 2020 August: Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas out of Copenhagen to Norway Cancelled due to COVID-19 😞
Then, we tried again but in 2023 May RCL Jewel of the Seas Arctic Circle (Norway) out of Amsterdam – cancelled due to knee surgery.
Finally, July 5, 2024 July RCL Jewel of the Seas Arctic Circle (Norway) out of Amsterdam
Not surprisingly I’ve been optimistically cautious that this trip would happen. My mom is nearly 101, DH had some potentially cruise-cancelling issues last week, who knows?
So, here I find myself on the morning of our flight, not yet packed, doing work, teaching piano later this morning.
Sunday night my mom said that her TV wasn’t working so I spent Monday night unattaching the Tivo and all the cables and installing a new Roku TV. The channel numbers start in the 100s. All she wanted to know was how to watch the local news, a game show or two, maybe Penn and Teller. I showed her how to get to those and she said it was too hard. So, I reversed the whole process and she got her non-working TV/TiVo combination back.
Tuesday, she wanted the Roku back so I spent Tuesday night unattaching the Tivo and all the cables and installing a new Roku TV. She says that she’s going to always keep it on the one news channel I left her with. We’ll see. She got a call from a friend who has a similar TV so maybe, while we’re gone, the friend will have more patience in showing her how to get the channels she wants. At 100.75 technology can be a challenge, I guess.
So, today I can focus on the piano student, packing and finally getting to the plane.
Incidentally, while we’re flying from the US to Ireland to Amsterdam, our DIL and grandkids are flying from China to the US. Small world!
