It’s time to start planning for the next couple of trips now that the house has settled back to just the three of us. We had a great visit with a lifelong friend that included jaunts to the Tampa and Sarasota airports, Kennedy Space Center, Braves Cool Today Stadium, Cocoa Beach Pier, Titusville, Venice Rookery, Lemon Bay pontoon cruise, and a birthday dinner sunset. After several delays yesterday on our friends’ trip back, he finally made it back to Portland with a first-class ticket upgrade. After a night there, he’ll return to his dogs for a welcome reunion. With no house guest, I have a free day today with few obligations except football and soccer. 

We went to see Broadway Diva Grace Fields last night at the neighborhood Islandwalk Entertainment Complex. She had an overpowering operettic voice more suitable for the Phantom numbers she preformed when compared to Judy Garland tunes she also sang. There was a meet and greet for neighbors at intermission so we snuck out the back door. It was not as bad as the Styx/Journey cover bands we saw here a few months ago. The next performance we’ll go to is The Land of the Greedy Mouse musical comedy that’s being put on by our talented neighbor down the street. Our fifth edition of the “Meet The Borrego Neighbors” get-together is this Friday as we continue to develop friendships. 

My wife and I will sit down this afternoon and plan a two-week family trip to Kauai for a year from now and a summer-time three-week drive into Northern Michigan that will eventually include a relaxing week in Hilton Head. We plan to drive through Central Illinois and my Indiana home town to visit friends, stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, and make stops in South Carolina and Atlanta to visit relatives. We’ll fit this into our aggressive 2022 travel schedule that also involves a Portland visit in conjunction with an Alaska/Russia/Japan Viking Ocean Cruise and two weeks on Florida’s Singer Island for our 22nd anniversary. We’ve already paid for a Viking Egyptian River Cruise and extended stays in Cairo and Petra for 2023. It’s time to make the most of our retirement after Covid put some dents in our plans these past two years.