Wow, it has been a couple of weeks since we posted. Sorry loyal readers, we have been quite busy and just did not get around to scribbling down our notes.

My mother returned to Florida at the end of August after spending a week with us. My mom is a real trooper, walking hither and yon, one of her friends came down from PA for lunch and we even managed to get her up to see her great granddaughter. She tackled the stairs in the house and hills on the walks with fortitude and grace. We really enjoyed having her visit.

After my mother left, Sue’s brother (David) and his wife (Stacey) came to visit. Stacey had a conference in DC, so they stayed at our place for a couple of days and then moved into Stacey’s hotel. As always, we kept ourselves busy with food, museums and walking. We went to yet another baseball game, this time at Nationals Stadium to watch the Mets (Sue’s & David’s favorite team – I guess someone has to support the junior NY team) slaughter the Nationals. The final score was 11-5, but it wasn’t that close. Sue and David were both very happy.

Stacey, David and I spent four hours at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and didn’t see everything. It’s very powerful and depressing. I consider myself pretty well informed and I learned a lot. It’s so obvious that the tactics used to hold people back are still in play today and the ramifications of our government’s behavior in codifying racism haunt us. Especially when there’s a politically-motivated attempt to deny it all. The building itself is also worth seeing.

Just some random photos of the Smithsonian museum buildings. The top middle and right are the African American History Museum.

Sue headed to Chicago for a week or so to visit with some friends and celebrate her child’s birthday and take care of some family stuff. I headed to Austin for work. We had our annual strategy meeting to lay out next year’s initiatives. I used the time there to see my team face to face, for only the second time.  

We were planning to end the week in Chihuahua to celebrate the wedding of our friends Steff and Teresa, but due to the family stuff that Sue was attending to, we had to drop out of that. We are very disappointed that we missed the celebration, but promised ourselves we would make it up by visiting with them when we are on the next round of travels.

We have been very very very busy planning our next round of foolishness. As Sue mentioned in her last post, the full plan is that we will head out at the end of October stopping in Copenhagen first to visit our niece Jillian, who is studying there for the semester (and per Instagram is having a great time). Next, we received an offer of a free place to stay in Berlin from a friend of Sue’s brother David so, we will be taking up that offer for a couple weeks. From there, we will head to Spain for our long stay in Valencia. We expect to be there until next May.  

We have started the process of arranging residence visas with a lawyer in Spain. That appears to be relatively straightforward since Sue has an EU passport. I get the right of residence simply by being married to her. One of the many benefits. We have also engaged with a few realtors in the area looking for a long-term apartment rental. The market for this type of rental seems pretty strong, and since it is off season, the prices seem reasonable.

We have also started looking at long weekend trips during our stay in Spain. Our first thought was to head to Morocco for the Christmas break, as we expect Spain will be closed over the holiday. However, the recent earthquake is making us rethink that plan. We are not worried about earthquakes, so much as we don’t want to be in the way and taking away necessary services to those who have been affected by this disaster. If you are able, donations to UNICEF, IFRC (Red Cross/Crescent) or your favorite charity will make some lives easier. Sorry for the naked plea for your money.

Other trips we are considering are Greece, Malta, Sicily, England to see Abi, Italy to see Ronan, Andorra to say we have been there 😉 and a bunch of places in Spain.

In our last post, Sue mentioned the that we have booked a safari to Kenya for nearly three weeks at the end of February. It is actually two safaris, one is by jeep in the Masai Mara, the other is a 10-day hike across part of the Tsavo National reserve. We are incredibly lucky that our cousin Robin has decided to join us on this portion of the insanity. You may remember Robin because she joined us in Buenos Aires and traveled throughout Patagonia with us. We always enjoy her companionship when we travel. The travel company sent a (very) long list of vaccines we will need to be safe in the wilds of Kenya (which I notice they didn’t mention until after we had booked!). Looks like we will need: Hepatitis A & B, typhoid, yellow fever and boosters of diphtheria, tetanus and polio. I suspect I will feel like a pin cushion soon, but I am sure it will be worth it. I got my first does of Hep A and B today. My arm is sore, but I may survive. We are looking forward to being back in Europe.