Travel 2024 – No Not a Rebound

Continued from:  Travel 2024 – Not a Rebound So Far

After busy June and July travel months, we did not go anywhere in August until the very end of the month when we traveled to the same farmhouse we had been to in the Spring near Dickson, TN.  When we were there in April, the long fields of corn surrounding the house had only recently been planted and the small shoots were quite short but seeming full of promise.  When we arrived in August, we were concerned to see the corn looking so forlorn.

I texted my daughter’s father-in-law (a farmer) and asked if the crop should look this way.  Rather than a simple reply, he actually researched the area to find out that harvesting in that location had begun but that while the corn might look drought distressed, farmers might just be waiting for the corn to reach the right moisture level before harvesting.  On a walk near the fields one morning, I was relieved to see that although some of the cobs had been eaten clean by some animal, there was fully formed kernels on most of the stalks.

This trip was with my wife’s knitting friends as back in April.  During that trip, one of the knitters suggested that since I don’t knit, I should work a puzzle while they knitted.  I thought it was a great idea since I love to puzzle each year and so brought along a puzzle I had done before, but one I thought appropriate for the Labor Day weekend—a beer label puzzle.

Saturday morning, I got it out and got started.  In no time, one of the knitters joined in finding the puzzling more tempting than her knitting.  Another non-knitting companion joined in and before the end of the day, we had it fully put together and celebrated its completion with a beer.

Originally, I did not think it would be finished before the weekend was over, but I never envisioned I would have so much help.

The house host had several other puzzles there and as an incentive, offered to frame and hang in the house any puzzle we finished during our visit, an example of which hung in our bedroom.

We chose this Starry Night themed Nashville puzzle from the choices available.  While we gave it the “old college try” …

… we ran out of time before finishing it (that’s all the blue-green sky pieces outside the frame that we never even got to.)

In September, I flew out to San Francisco to watch my two grandchildren while mom and dad (my oldest son) flew off to New York for a well-deserved weekend celebration.  While the kids were in school on Friday, I treated myself to one of my favorite coffee shops there…

… before my granddaddy service kicked in in earnest Friday after school let out.  The three of us played a number of games together, went for two nice walks, one to a close by park and one to downtown San Mateo.  And of course, as usual, we spent a good bit of time building LEGOs together.

In October, my wife and I flew up to Winston-Salem, NC for our niece’s wedding.

I knew this was going to be a hard trip emotionally as it would be the first time we would be at the home of her late sister since the funeral in March of 2023.

The wedding occurred in their backyard on the patio that her husband built and dedicated to her after her death.  It was a long weekend of bittersweet moments of both joy for the bride and her groom but also sadness for the absence of my wife’s dear sister, the bride’s mother.  Particularly, when the family visited the gravesite, and the bride placed her wedding bouquet in the vase on her mom’s tombstone.  But to me, overall, the happiness of the occasion overshadowed the sorrow.

Four days after returning home, I was off again on another trip, this time to Northwest Arkansas for our annual SibSab (Sibling Sabbatical).

If you read that post, you know we chose to go there since our planned site, Montreat, was devastated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene just weeks before our scheduled arrival.  As always, we had another great time together while also getting to visit with other family members living in the area.  If you missed that post, you could click HERE for the details.

Then in November, we took our biggest trip of the year.  It was an early celebration of our 45^th wedding anniversary.  It was a trip that deserves its own series of posts to immediately follow this one.  But just as a teaser, it was a trip across the big pond.

So, in spite of me hoping 2024 would be a rebound year of travel, I once again only took 12 trips, six by car and six by airplane.  Hopefully in 2025, I will be able to up that number with many more fun trips.  Stay tuned to find out!