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First trip to Costa Rica!
What a wonderful week! Special thanks to Cindy & Ron for inviting me to fly down and join them. And to their daughter, Alex and son-in-law-, AJ for making me feel so welcome and driving us around! I flew into San Jose – a simple 3 hour flight out of Miami. The rest of the group arrived late that evening (from frozen Canada) and we spent the night at La Riviera Hotel in San Antonio, which has a free shuttle from the airport. Cindy and Ron had hired a driver to take us across to Jaco which takes about 1 1/2 hours depending on traffic. January – March is heavy…
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Planning the next adventure
Six weeks from today, I leave for my next adventure in Europe. I have some things finalized: a full-day riding a Clydesdale in Cornwall, a theater performance looking out over the sea, a cooking class in Rome. Pretty good stuff. Some minor details…I haven’t booked my flight. Why? Because I am a brat and am pouting over the airfare prices! I always do a pretty comprehensive budget before I travel. I budget $1,000 for airfare. But I am always able to get a flight at around $850 if I watch and wait. Well, I’ve been watching and waiting and it’s not happening. Once I watched and waited too long and…
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Anna Maria Island, FL
Thursday, October 6, 2011 The University has a fall break on the semester calendar and classes are canceled Monday and Tuesday. I had originally planned to go see my daughter Jessie in south Louisiana, and had given my Friday trauma class an Internet assignment. We ended up rescheduling so Jessie can come home over the holidays instead. So I found myself with an unexpected free long weekend. My college roommate, Debbie, has a condo on Anna Maria Island and invited me to use it. I took her up on the offer and decided to capitalize on this weekend and call it a “writing retreat”. The condo is directly on the…
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Why do I love doing this?
I just returned from a rather impromptu camping trip that could have been scripted for an “I Love Lucy” episode. And yes, I was Lucy. I have camped my entire life. Until I was in college, I didn’t even know there were campgrounds, much less ones with bathrooms. My parents’ idea of camping was to go for weeks on one of the barrier islands where we collected our drinking water into large Army canteens from dew or rain. Our bathroom was a shovel and a roll of toilet paper kept in a coffee can to keep it dry. Then I was a Girl Scout leader for 12 years and we…
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Day 20: Transitions
I have a wonderful life. My work is wonderful, my family is wonderful, and I live the way I want to live. This strikes me often – but especially today when I have to transition from a true “holiday” back to the world that supports me. I was a bit tearful walking from La Gaffe to the Tube station this morning. I had a nice visit with Lorenzo over breakfast – how I will miss his lattes’ – then it was time to leave. It’s never as much fun ending a vacation as it is to begin one. The logistics of leaving London were easy: Walk from La Gaffe to…
