I traveled for two days to Bentonville, Arkansas (a culturally surprising little town, courtesy of WalMart’s Walton family) in late May for McGee’s final race of his D1 career, the NCAA Semi-Finals Track Championship held at the University of Arkansas. Since he was simultaneously missing his squadron’s commissioning ceremony at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA), he had his own at a restaurant in Arkansas, attended by some officers, his coach, his team, his parents and me. He was appropriately lauded for his academic and sports accomplishments, and it was a very memorable (and personal) occasion.
It required perfect weather, an on time flight, and divine intervention (or, in this case, the intervention of the Superintendent of USAFA, which is kind of the same thing) to enable McGee to compete in a race starting the night before at 9pm in Arkansas and still make it to the USAFA stadium several states away before 9am the next day to line up for his graduation. That day started with the four of us leaving the hotel at 4am, boarding a flight before 6am and landing in Denver, where McGee was met right outside the airport doors by a cadet friend with his parade dress uniform in his car. Every minute counted. The other three of us got a car and started our drive to the academy. The Superintendent had arranged for both cars to have a military police escort to the football stadium once we arrived at the base security gate to bypass traffic congestion. McGee joined his fellow graduates, already lined up in the stadium tunnel to march onto the field. The rest of us got to our seats just as the march on began. That is always so impressive (search 2026 USAFA graduation on YouTube for proof. March on begins at 24:45). Graduation was cold and damp and breezy and…simply the best, especially since the hat toss/flyover could take place as anticipated despite the weather. We were and are so proud.
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| The Wild Blue Yonder was more grey than blue but I suspect no one cared a bit since the flyover could take place as planned. |
No, not the first guy (the Veep) that the graduate chest bumped, but that same cadet then walked down the ramp to chest bump his friend McGee,
left side, silver sash, huge smile as he walked toward the camera.
Service academy graduates get 60 days paid leave before they have to report to their first duty station. McGee and teammates spent a few weeks in French Polynesia (yeah, I may have influenced that decision just a smidge, but, hey, they asked!) where they had the time of their lives doing things like technical hiking, jet skiing, cave exploration and deep sea fishing. What else do six distance runners do while vacationing on Moorea? They run the length of the circle road around the entire island, 36.4 miles on a Sunday morning. Just for fun.
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| This was another one of those “I’m glad I didn’t know you were doing this until you were done” undertakings (and there have been many over the years). That road around Moorea is narrow! |
We had a couple of weeks off then before Wedding Week began. Excitement reached crescendo pitch by wedding day, and that was the highlight of a love, joy and faith filled week. McGuy had made certain I was involved in everything, starting with two ring shopping trips when he was home for Christmas break more than a year ago (I was deeply touched) right through the proposal and honeymoon planning and up to the wedding. This couple is so darn photogenic that their photographer is using their wedding pics for her social media advertising. Between them and McGee in the viral chest bump video, I never knew which of my guys was going to show up in my daily social media feeds.
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| The rehearsal dinner was Western themed. I bought my first cowboy boots for the occasion! |
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| Also blessed to have friends like Martha, whom I’ve known for 38 years. Blog readers often ask about her as she was such a help to us in our early years of spending winters at sea and got several blog mentions. She’s still living her best life! |
After that, it truly felt as if nearly every other week I was being anesthetized for something. But we are finally both fit as fiddles and ready to roll. The rest of the summer was filled with endless days of record breaking heat, smoke, drought and road construction. Frankly I’m not sorry to see the end of this one. And, with all the kids moved away, I found myself earlier this month dog sitting their family’s 14-year old schnoodle. Blind and deaf but still eating and comfortable, Blu may not be here when we return from our trip 🥺 so I enjoyed the opportunity to love on him for a few days. Actually, over the years I’ve watched their 4, then 3, then 2 remaining kids, always along with two dogs, with less anxiety than I felt dog sitting Blu. I slept there every night to ward off wild animals (we have a lot) during his middle of the night potty breaks, and handed him back in one piece to his parents five days later. Success!
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| Blu’s favorite pastime 💙 He would have been happy to curl up next to me on the sofa all day, every day, and I kind of enjoyed it too. |
And by then Labor Day weekend had passed, summer was unofficially over, and our travel prep began in earnest.
It’s been a while since we’ve left home with the intention of cruising quite as many consecutive days as we have on tap this fall. I think we may have been gone this long in Fall 2024, but that was unintentional, and a result of the Regal Princess going out of service for three weeks in the middle of our B2Bs. That year also featured a mad scramble to try to re-stock personal care items through Kroger and Amazon deliveries made to our Galveston hotel when we extended our time away by over four weeks. Re-stocking will be more limited this time, and I’ve tried to pack intentionally.
To that end, I booked Choice Extra or some such seats on Southwest. The fare in points was only slightly higher than the cheap seats, and the best part is that we can each have two checked bags (and, I’m told, will be served pistachios on board as snacks!). I am flush with points right now, having maximized the 3/24 and 5/24 credit card games this summer, and we felt like living large. We truly didn’t know how many suitcases we’d have until we were fully packed today, and I was not in the mood to cut back and do without on this trip. I know we’re going to have some cool days in New Zealand and to/from Hawaii and packed warmer clothes for them and for Princess Theater temps, too. Final suitcase count? Still one large and one roll aboard each, with an additional shared suitcase plus a small backpack. And that includes snorkel (Dravuni Island, I’m coming for you!) and workout gear, packs of disposable washcloths and makeup remover cloths (that Princess washcloth shortage still haunts me) and back care devices (will we get good Princess mattresses…or not?).
Home preparation for our time away was fairly straightforward. We did start up the furnace on a 100° day in August just to ensure no surprises. Tested the water shut off valve ahead of time. Added Stabil to our gas tanks. Replaced our battery backup to keep WiFi humming in the event of a power outage. Did the usual winterizing activities outside. (Those are all “royal we” accomplishments, in case there was any confusion.😆) Largely emptied and then cleaned but did not turn off the refrigerator. Put my MacBook in the safe deposit box. Unplugged lithium ion battery chargers around the house and garage. Renewed our passports in early June and got our New Zealand and Australia electronic visas. Planned a few excursions. And that’s about all we did. We won’t be gone for months AND months this time. Just months.
The days when we tackled major projects around the house just before leaving are behind us, but I well remember the year we started ripping and replacing the trim boards off our three story house, involving day after day after day of hours in the sun, and evenings spent with me shining flashlights out windows to light up the area G was working on, 20 feet off the ground. Then there was the year we leveled the house’s main support beam, jacking it up in the basement and turning the cranks on the support posts. I’ll never forget standing under all this house and hearing the creak as the house (we hoped) settled back down. Damn, we were crazy, but it all worked out. And we’re no longer quite so ambitious but final days this year still included two extension ladders.
I hate extension ladders. I truly despise them. (Linda, I know you’re laughing right about now, as you are a firsthand witness as to my feelings about them). Not the climbing them or standing on them parts, but the setting them up and taking them down parts. And, for me, cruise preparation and extension ladders will always be linked. I’d be happy to break that mental connection.
In a bad news/good news series of events, I was vacuuming with our cordless Bissell a few days ago when it suddenly stopped working (bad news). G determined it was the switch, which we had replaced once before and knew could be done easily (good news). But a Google search turned up no parts availability for this and similar models (bad news). I assumed the vacuum was so old that parts were no longer available for it; however, more Google searching turned up a recall on that model (we had never been notified). I sent in the appropriate proof of ownership and immediately received a return email. They were shipping us a new one (very good news). However, we wouldn’t receive it before we left home (bad news). But we have wonderful neighbors who I felt certain would grab it from our front porch (good news). Still, the house wouldn’t get cleaned before we left (bad news). Then, a day later G was taking the vacuum apart and got it working (good news). Not that it was safe to keep in the house (the recall was for fire danger), but I did finish cleaning and depleted and removed the battery.
It’s inevitable that we leave in the fall just days after Apple 1) launches its new products and 2) does a significant iOS upgrade. The latter can always throw our “managed from our iPhones” home into pandemonium but we upped the degree of difficulty this year and purchased new iPhone 18 Pros also. I must have forgotten the number of times over the years that doing that has called my ability to do blog post writing and publishing into question. No matter. One night of lost sleep and I have BlogTouch Pro working (admittedly a little sluggishly but hopefully there will be an update in the next week). I also got all my Bluetooth listening and body composition devices disconnected from my old phone and connected to my new phone, so I’ll call that a win.
After a crazy week (chasing down one final vacation override on a prescription nearly unhinged me), today involved just a 5:30am pool workout and a pedicure for me, and closing up the suitcases. Our anniversary dinner was comprised of the last of the whatever remained in the refrigerator. We’re hungry, but know that feeling isn’t going to last. Tomorrow we have a very early pick up and a direct flight to Long Beach. It’s no secret that Los Angeles has become our favorite cruise departure port, because of the size and the ease of reaching LGB from home. The stress level of that airport is even lower than Houston Hobby, which is a good thing because our own airport is perpetually crazy, even for those of us familiar.
Lots of free checked luggage, a direct flight, multiple cruises in store…and a new vacuum on the way.
Have I mentioned that life is good? :-)
