Little by Little

Many of my friends are totally amazed that we would be on a ship for SO LONG!  Ha ha.  I guess if you had asked us 20 years ago if we would be traveling like this we would have looked at you like a deer in the headlights!  But after having done the Grand Asia Cruise with HAL a few years ago we are ready for this adventure.  

How do you prepare for 90 days at sea?  (70 days for the Grand Africa the another 16 days over the holidays on the same ship). Well for me I have to start early and do a little bit each day in researching ports, reading the Cruise Critic entries on the roll call for this cruise, make to do lists and review everything so as not to get confused.  Dan and I watched a lot of YouTube on our ports which was so helpful in deciding what we wanted to do.  I made a calendar for each month with our tours and activities… then I made a narrative document on each tour, the cost, the leader of the tour and agency, contact information and details of the tour.  I made a chronological list of our tours too.  It’s a great cross reference for me.  I’m also sharing it with our friends, Chuck and Betsy Story who are joining us.  I have a soft sided binder with all of this including a copy of our itinerary, our luggage tags, our travel insurance documents and our insurance through our credit card and Air Evacuation which we purchased for international trips.  I have digital copies of everything including our wills, our medical cards, licenses, CC, vaccination cards, yellow fever waiver, passports, our deviation letter from HAL to get off for a safari and any other documents we might need.  We store all this in the cloud so if we ever lose our phones we can access the information at any computer.  We have digital and paper copies too.  So I’m prepared!!

I have received several requests to follow this cruise. Some are from folks that are planning this trip for 2023.  I hope you will let me know by commenting that you are getting the new entries. I’ve had some issues and I’m working on correcting them. As we go along I’ll share some of my documents with you. If there is something in particular you want to know about please don’t hesitate to ask me for it.  I know some of you are following other blogs on this cruise too.  We have just about two weeks until we fly to Fort Lauderdale from Phoenix.  We are going two days early with our friends. We will get our COVID tests the night before we fly out.  We are staying at the Comfort Inn and Suites at the airport.  They offer the shuttles and breakfast. So here are a few documents for you to peruse. 

We got this by email today about some of the entertainment on board…

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/cruise-destinations/booked-guests-grand-voyages/resources-to-print/africa-resources-to-print.html

Here is a link to what Holland sent us about the trip.

Here are the calendars I made. I’ll add the tour list and some of the narrative in another entry.  At this point we have all our vaccinations, COVID omicron booster, our dental cleaning, all our medications ordered for 90 days and our VeriFLY information inputted.  This was new to us but HAL is requesting we do it. You sure need to be tech savvy these days to keep in the loop!!

Let me know if you got this entry and also send a comment if you want special information :)



It’s A Bucket List Trip

It’s been a long time since I have blogged.  I’m hoping I still know how to do this!  I guess mostly I haven’t blogged due to COVID a word we have come to know far to well.   As I begin this I’m in the dentist office for the second time this week getting my temporary crown on again for the fifth time!!!  Dan and I spent four months in Juniper Ridge Resort up outside of Show Low, Arizona over summer.  It was a good decision for us this year.  Dan had back surgery in April and I had eye surgery in March so it was better for us to stay closer to home this summer. Dan did PT in Show Low and it worked out well. Now we are back in Buckeye, getting shots and preparing for this “ bucket list” trip.  

October 8th we take off for Fort Lauderdale in preparation to board the Holland America Zaandam for 90 days!!!  We are taking a 71 day trip around Africa and then we will stay on the ship and do another 16 day cruise for the holidays.  Betsy and Chuck Story, snowbirds from Boise will join us for the Africa trip then we will be on for holidays by ourselves.  

The weather now in Buckeye is HOT and we are doing yard work cleaning up two large Palo Verde trees that went down in our back yard during the monsoon.  In between that we are running errands, going to appointments, beginning to pack and even thinking of Christmas and Halloween for our sweet granddaughter Zoey and our kids.  It will all have to be done early this year.  

While in Juniper we lost our sweet sweet kitty Frazier who was with us for 19 years.  It was a tearful sad situation and coming home without him even tougher but we loved him and have given him a great life while he blessed us with his quirky behaviors and sneaky ways❤️❤️ . 

So get ready to follow us on the journey.  I’ll provide some information about our trip by way of a map and itinerary.  Keep us in your thoughts that we won’t contract COVID before we board or our cruise is cancelled!!  We masked all summer and have been very careful.   We have our yellow fever waiver, our new flu shot, the last of our hepatitis shots and will get our COVID variant booster in two weeks.   I’m starting to get excited and believe this trip is going to happen!!  It has been cancelled twice and just last week we had our itinerary changed!  But the joys of travel mean you are flexible and no worries, right?

This is our route.  At several places we stay overnight.  We go on a three day safari out of Durban.  We also do an overnight trip to Petra.  

Some beautiful monsoons skies where we stayed this summer.  It’s a 55 gated community of park models and RV lots.  You own the property.   There were lots of activities, concerts, dinners, pickleball, water aerobics, poker, wood shop, jewelry marking, arts and crafts, golf course and more!

This was the RV lot we sub let for four months.  We had lots of fun neighbors too! 

Here is a drawing a friend made me of Tessie and my cats.  The brown was was Dundee ( DeeDee) who died over two years ago (mine) and the Flame Point , her brother , was Frazier.  We named them after our Streets in Post Falls.  I cried when my friend Vera gave me this gift.  It’s one of the most special and thoughtful gifts someone has given me. 

More beautiful monsoon skies this summer 

And here is our sweet granddaughter who dies everything from rock climbing, to rafting, to swimming, reading, living her cat, biking, hiking and making our lives richer. She turned 7 in July. 

Wearing her shirt I gave her last year for her birthday, her button and her crown!  


The mess of our downed Palo Verde trees in our back yard. 

They crushed our picnic table which we covered with a blue tarp to protect the tiles :(

And this funny guy one of our camp workers made at the entrance to our summer park for the 4th of July!!

An outdoor concert at Juniper. 

A rodeo we attended at Taylor which was jam packed with people this summer

New pickleball courts at Juniper.

Some of the many activities buildings at Juniper. 

The hot tub and huge pool. 

One of my summer pits I had that was beautiful. 

Zoey and her cute cat Max .  She is a very loving and responsible pet owner ❤️

We camped a week at a very nice state park in Show Low, AZ with Dans sister and her husband, Cheryl and Steve.  Fun times!

Dan found a dead bull snake at the park, non venomous, and he did a little autopsy with Steve.  It was a female and she was full of egg sacks.  

Our RV spot at Fool Hollow in Show Low in May.  

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