Why this, why now?

This might not be the most exciting first Blog post but it is an important one....why take a cruise like this and blog about it?. While we've been planning to take an around-the-world cruise for many years (bucket list), I didn't really think we'd do it. There's the obvious cost hurdle, but then there's also the time-away aspect.....away from our precious granddaughter, away from our wonderful children, away from work, church, home(s)....life! How on earth could we go away from everything we know and love for 4 whole months????

But then there's a travel-loving, soon-to-be 60, 35-year married couple who just spent 2+ years navigating COVID (like everyone else) and we decided to prioritize a trip like this over all the reasons not to take a trip like this. 60 might be the new 50 and all that mumbo-jumbo but the truth is this....In your youth and young adult years, you have your health but no time or resources (aka money, moolah, greenbacks, pocket jingle). At 70 or 80 or maybe even 90, you have time and resources but possibly not your health. If time and resources are increasing over your life span and health is decreasing over that same period, then where those continuums cross is when we have the greatest combined supply of all three - time, resources and health. For us, that's now.

When I retired in mid 2018, we had dreamed of taking this trip in Jan-Apr 2019. But then we found out we were going to be grandparents and plans changed. Money set aside for the trip suddenly morphed into a second home near that grandbaby. No regrets. We've been an active, involved, present and loving part of her life since birth and have been rewarded 10-fold with a bond so strong, it is in fact the single hardest part of going away for 4 months. Thank G-d for Facetime and Whatsapp. I decided to go back to work in a consulting capacity to replenish the kitty and then COVID hit. 3x we (re)booked and (re)canceled, thinking COVID couldn't possibly last that long. It's almost surreal now that the trip is actually happening.

So now we're in the 90-day window before we leave and the laundry list of what we need to do is almost overwhelming. We're working right up to Christmas so it's not as though we have "free time". But it will get done...somehow. I'm an avid researcher of anything and everything so as I began my research of world cruises, I couldn't find anything relevant that walked through all the ins and outs of a trip like this. Most were about the travel itself, like what to see and do in each country/port. But traveling for 120 days is different than being away for 120 days. Being away is tricky. Being away for (way) more than 2 weeks presents obstacles that have to be overcome....bills need to be paid, prescriptions need to be taken, mail needs to be managed, houses need to be maintained etc etc etc. There are a 1000 etc's. But I digress. The fact is I couldn't find anything relevant that dealt with both the travel and the "being away" aspects of a world cruise. I know what you're thinking...first world problem. It is. But it's still a problem and I love solving problems.

So I decided to write a blog to chronicle our trip, the traveling part AND the being away part. So much goes into making a trip like this a success. From packing and visas to turning off the water and draining the toilets....it's a lot of details big and small. I am so looking forward to this journey....not only the cruise but the journey of preparing for the cruise and creating a blog that documents the journey in a way that's interesting, mindful, exciting and practical. I am committed to sharing the good and the bad, the wonderful people we will surely meet and the jackasses we'll just as assuredly encounter. I'd like this blog to be part travel consultant, part food critic, part spiritual, part health coach, part comedian and lastly part wise old man. I mentioned earlier my love of researching all things which (re) teaches me daily the adage, "you don't know what you don't know". But in the quest for knowledge on this journey, especially internationally with a 26-country mix of cultures, POV's (points of view), political, religious and ethnic diversity, I'll surely be wiser when it's over, right??? Like you, I have one eyebrow furrowed so low it's caught in my eyelashes and the other eyebrow arched so far up my forehead, my hairline no longer looks like it's receding on that side. Like so many things in life, time will tell.