ITALY, HERE WE COME!

I'm astounded to discover that I haven't posted to my blog since 2011! It's not as though I've been away all that time - in fact, I spend waaaay too much time looking at this computer screen.

Funny thing about blogging: it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to have a strong feeling that anyone (or everyone) is interested in one's thoughts. I guess I just lost that drive to share?

At any rate, here I am. Mike and I are one week away from departure; we're leaving for Florence, Italy, with an OLLI group on June 10. I hope to be able to access my blog while we're away, and plan to use it as a journal of this trip. The last trip we took, a Viking river cruise through the middle Rhine Valley, came and went without my recording a single thought or posting very many pictures. What a waste! I vowed once I returned to not let that happen again.

So, for any of you who are interested, I pledge to record thoughts and impressions as we travel. And to all of you who regard this as an excellent opportunity to back a truck up to my front door and haul away all of our possessions, fair warning: big, strong son and ferocious dog will be in residence the entire time. While that is terrible news for robbers and burglars, it's great for Mike and me. We know the house and the puppy will be well-cared-for.

We plan to climb the 297 steps from the ground to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We practiced yesterday by climbing from the Plaza Level of the Capitol building to the 15th floor - 308 steps! Today we have sore calves and thighs, but it was actually really fun. And we now feel as though it's possible for these old bones to be dragged up that tower to enjoy the view.

SO - Italy, here we come! And I'll probably gripe a little bit about packing sometime later this week.

June 3, 2014