2016 has been a crazy year, hasn't it? I mean, CRAZY. And not in a fun, Girls Night Out harmless hijinks way. More like a Charles Manson crazy. Ugh. I don't think I know anyone who is not looking forward to a fresh start with 2017.
Of course there was the election. I guess the positive spin on that would be, 'thank goodness it's finally over'?? And so many beloved celebrities are no longer with us. Pretty sure Gene Wilder's first name was short for 'genius'.
On a more personal note, it was getting a little scary how many of my neighbors' loved ones passed away this year. There were a half-dozen family losses on my street alone, and my street is a very short street! No gang shootings or terrorist attacks were responsible; just the inevitable awakening from this dream we call life. My sweet mother-in-law passed away this summer after along battle with Parkinson's. And our beloved yellow lab died in January. No disrespect intended lumping the two together - we loved both of them very much and are still thinking of them often.
As life often does, we had some positives to help balance out the gloom. We had two different family occasions that provided the opportunity for our far-flung family to get together in person, which is always such a delight. No, seriously! But the big kahuna, the one thing that happened this year that absolutely keeps 2016 from being a total loss, was The Bucket List trip.
I've had travel on my bucket list for ages. We were able to do some travel within the U.S. while we were raising a family. But I had my sights set a little further afield. Now that we are empty-nesters and some of our financial obligations have been met, we are finally able to do it.
This first major international trip came about sort of out of the blue. It was a simple phone call that did it. My son-in-law is a musician and has traveled all over the world. One day my daughter called and as we were chatting, asked if we wanted to join them on his next trip. He was going to be performing in Germany for a couple of weeks and she thought she would tag along and wondered if we would like to join her. Um, YES!
So for the next couple of blog posts, I'd like to share my experiences as a first-time Baby Boomer-aged international traveler with you. We had some ups and downs, but the ups definitely won!
I think you're right about Gene being short for genius. 🙂 I love to travel and look forward to your upcoming posts on your adventures. It's great that you're taking the opportunity to tick things off the bucket list.
I keep hearing Mr. Burns from The Simpsons saying, "Release the hounds!" Now that we have this first big international trip under our belts, I feel like I could take a year and just GO and not get tired of it. That's my plan as soon as we hit the lottery LOL!