We plan trips and they seem so far away and then all of a sudden the date arrives and you are off on an adventure. This time, I’d chosen Scotland, and my daughter came as companion. I chose Road Scholar, a travel group for seniors. Frank and I went on 19 Road Scholar trips all over. Five of them were intergenerational trips where you could take a grandchild. Frank and I took my oldest granddaughter, Kaelen, to Africa. It was a wonderful trip, but a frantic start as Kaelen left her passport and money in a zippered container in the TSA bin! We didn’t miss it until we got to New York. Too late to check with TSA. We missed our tour group and overnighted in New York. The passport place in Connecticut said if we got there by noon they could help us. We took a taxi from JFK to Connecticut, they walked the passport through (after my daughter faxed all the paperwork again, and Kaelen had her picture taken, again!) We then took a taxi from Connecticut back to JFK where Frank had been faithfully sitting in the food court with our luggage all day. Whew!

We were on our own in Johannesburg for the weekend thanks to the ongoing care of our tour director, and met up with our group on Monday. Frank got so sick I thought we were going to have to fly home. The medication for malaria and the medication he was taking clashed. We found a pharmacy in Moen, Botswana and the pharmacist gave him the correct medication. We had a great trip, but Frank opted out of the next three grandchildren trips to New Zealand, Ireland, and Spain respectively. We did take his granddaughter Maddie to the Grand Canyon. This spring I took my first trip on my own to the Queen Mary and Catalina, but it seemed strange to be going by myself. Gone also are the many trips Frank and I made to Alaska to go salmon and halibut fishing. I probably won’t see Alaska again. I’ve got two more Road Scholar trips coming up this fall. I might as well see what I can see before I’m not able to travel. Hopefully that time is a long ways away.