November 19, 2024
One week to go! We leave next Tuesday, driving to Long
Beach, staying at (Aside: does one stay AT a hotel or IN a hotel?) the Queen
Mary which is docked (Another aside: How can a hotel be docked?) next to where
we hope the Seabourn Quest will be docked.
We have cleared the bed in our junk room, uh, guest bedroom
so we can start laying out our clothes for the trip. Quite hard to plan for
clothing where it’s going to be warm to very hot (South Pacific and Australia’s
summer) when it is cool to very cold here in Tucson! Now to actually taking out the
clothes and trying some of them on. It is kind of exciting, though, to be
getting ready for the kind of trip that most people will never take. Nevermind
that most people do not want to be on a cruise ship for 46 days! We, on the
other hand, have never been on a cruise that was too long (our longest, so
far!, was a 104 day, around-the-world, cruise from Sydney to Sydney. Can you
tell we like Australia and Australians?).
I am having to mix in dinner dates with friends here at the
Hacienda, volunteer work, packing, making checklists, doctor appointments, and
best of all, our daughter, Kathy’s, birthday on November 20. No, I won’t tell
you how old she is. Then you’d know how old I am.
We were going to do an early Thanksgiving with Kathy and Ken
(favorite SIL), but Ken will be away for this coming weekend so that’s not
going to work. We will be away on the cruise for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New
Year’s Eve, and Randy’s birthday! We chose this cruise despite missing the
holidays but it was a tough decision. We chose it primarily because we haven’t
see our son, Greg, and favorite DIL, Yolanda, in several years because they
live in Australia. We do a zoom call about once a week to keep in touch, but it
isn’t the same as being there!
So, back to packing. Or planning to pack. Or trying to plan
to pack.
I promise to have more pictures when we actually get going!
