2025 Travel, Almost ready to go…

Our trip to Florida in December was lots of fun, seeing grandchildren who are now in three states—Florida, Nevada, and California. On December 30th they all headed down to Disney to celebrate the end of 2024 and ring in 2025. The generals, Deanne and Scot had a whole itinerary planned, ending with fireworks and a sad good-bye to Dan and Kelcey as they headed back to Las Vegas early on the 1st and later to Alexa. Looking back to that good-bye must seem even worse, as she is now in Los Angeles along with the fires.

On December 30th, we headed for the Sanford/Orlando airport for our flight that was scheduled to leave at 9:17 PM. then 10:37, then midnight, and then we left the plane for a stay in the terminal. We were then instructed to reclaim our bags on carousel 2. Luckily we knew the code to the house and so once again in an uber we left the airport.  Three o’clock found us back in the bed we had left in the morning and 8:00 AM we were up, soon to be showered and once again, booking an Uber.

At the airport we checked in, got our original seats back and headed for TSA. There we were instructed to go back to check-in and get a printed boarding pass. Yep! The digital app was no good. Back we went, jumped the line and got some help. A young gate agent took the initiative to start a line just for the backed up Indianapolis flight and soon our fellow passengers were lined up behind us. Back through security and finally made our way to COFFEE! Now we are sitting comfortably with our crew from last night, waiting for take-off.

So this is the way we say Adios, Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen, farewell to 2024. We sit with crossed fingers that this is not a harbinger for what’s to come in 2025.

We’re now in Chicago and in a day or so, we’ll be at O’Hare getting ready to take off for London and then Larnaca, Cyprus. We have a VRBO apartment there which looks lovely. Crossing our fingers that the place is as lovely as the photos. Packing was a bit of a challenge but I read and reread all the articles on packing, rolling, folding, packing cubes, and checking bags versus carry-on only. We decided to go the way that has been successful for us—checking our 21 inch suitcases and packing 3 days worth of clothes in the carry-on along with travel documents and art supplies. 

Before we left Bloomington, we had a major snow storm, 12 inches was dumped on our town. It started out so peacefully.  I am very shaggy at the moment. My haircut was cancelled due to the snow so now in Chicago I’ll take my chances and as always, remember it will grow. Pretty silly problem and easy to solve and of course Dennis has already volunteered to do the job.

I asked him earlier if we should still do a blog and he said a very definite yes! I’ve also had friends/family ask if he was going to write. Notice it was, is HE going to write? Again, he said yes. So now I’m waiting for the words of wisdom to be written. 

And here they are...

Well, today is 1/10/2025 and Cindy is already "bugging me" about writing for the blog. That's 3 days before we even leave on our trip!! And now it begins...

On 1/5 we had about 12 inches of snow in B'ton. Two days later, we left for Chicago to meet our new grandson Dominic, born on 1/2/25 and help out as needed. Apparently we brought the snow with us. Got 2 inches of snow here today, much less than we left in B'ton. 

It was wonderful greeting, meeting and holding him. What a way to start a trip. 🧡

It's 25 degrees in Chicago today. I just checked Larnaca, Cyprus where we'll be headed in 3 days, out of Chciago and it 70℉ and sunny there. 25℉ here? 70℉ and sunny there? Bring it on!! Stay tuned. I''l keep you posted on our Mediterrean adventure. 😉Den