Not to be overly dramatic, I am OVER THE MOON! I have been trying to use my iPad Mini to write future entries rather than taking my laptop, and it FINALLY worked! I was just about to give up. Many YouTube videos later, which were useless, somehow I figured it out. I even contacted my tech guru and she was going to walk me through it later today, just in the knick of time before we leave tomorrow for Italy. I guess this old brain is still working! There is nothing more to report for now but I thought I would share my triumph. I will write soon.
Almost ready to leave on our next adventure…
The time has flown by and we are excited to be embarking on another grand trip.
In the meantime, we went to Baja California Sur for a week in May to visit Denver friends (for over 40 years) who have a home in San Jose del Cabo for a few days with mutual friends who live in Ajijic. I worked with the husband of the couple here about 45 years ago and lo and behold, they live 10 minutes from us. In any case, we had three fun days with our Denver friends before Jim and I drove to a small town north of Cabo San Lucas, Los Cerritos, to meet my son and his family. It is a well-known surfing town on the Pacific with dusty dirt roads. It could have been plucked from old hippy days (surprise!).
Judd and his wife, Elizabeth, along with my two granddaughters, Arlo and Sanelle, frolicked in the water and everyone, except us and Elizabeth got to surf or boogie board. The water was about 65F, which is waaaay to cold for my tender toes. Good thing they had wet suits! It was a short but fun visit with them.
We leave for Italy on May 28, but Jim is taking a few days to go to the Denver area to celebrate the high school graduation of his youngest grandson and his granddaughter, who graduated from Colorado State University last December. Going to Colorado in the winter was not a big draw, so he will enjoy celebrating with them this weekend. After a one day turnaround, we will leave for Rome, via Mexico City, and then on to Sicily for a week, starting in Catania and ending in Palermo. This is a similar trip I took with my daughter two years ago that Jim didn’t get to go. We are using the same tour company and we will be traveling with a group of no more than 8 others. That is the ideal number of people!
From Sicily, we have a short break and will go to the Amalfi Coast, where I have not been before but Jim has visited. Then, on to a villa between Rome and Naples for a week-long cooking class. This will also be with a small group, where we shop together, plan meals together, cook together, and, of course, eat together. We just hope that they will be a fun group!
And, finally, we will fly from Rome to Brindisi for an eight-day self-drive tour of Puglia, in the heel of the boot of Italy. The hotels are booked by the tour company, as well as the car with all the insurance needed. We, then, drive to all the towns in the area, enjoying visits to Lecce, Bari, and more, depending on how we feel. We also stay in an Alberollo trulli (look it up), rather than just driving past them.
I was hoping to write about all of this on my iPad Mini but it is being very cranky and won’t let me into the blog site. I may have to take my MacBook Air instead, which I was hoping to avoid. Maybe between now and next Wednesday, I will figure this out and write often with my little device. I think that WordPress is the problem, not my mini!
I will send an email or WhatsApp to let you know that there is a new entry on happyhelena.com. When you have a few minutes, check it out. It is more for me, than for you guys, because I review what I have written and marvel at the details of where we have been without having to rack my steadily shrinking brain!
I hope you enjoy it…
Upcoming Travel in 2025
We enjoy traveling while we can, because there may come a day when it may not be possible. That will be a sad day…
Coming up soon, we have a short trip in April 2025 to Baja Sur to visit Denver friends who have a home near San Jose del Cabo for a few days. Then, we go to a beachside town north of Cabo san Lucas to spend time with my son, daughter in law and their wonderful family for spring break. We are excited to have the opportunity to go there, even if only for a week.
Coming next is a trip to Italy. Fortunately, flying from Guadalajara, Mexico to Europe has become easier, with excellent flights directly to Madrid or through Mexico City to Rome. We do all the planning and booking because we keep changing our minds about various aspects of our trips. Also, there are some websites that offer unique tours and adventures that most travel agents may not know.
One of our favorite sites is Tourradar.com. They are like the Expedia of tours, working with tour companies that most of us have never heard of. And, because we do not like traveling with a herd of 30 or 40 people, we are almost always able to find a tour for 8-15 people, allowing us to enjoy the company of a smaller group.
Why take a tour? In the past, we traveled by the seat of our pants, flying somewhere, booking hotels, researching the places to visit, etc. The first time I traveled in Europe with my college roommate, we took “Europe on $5 a Day,” and tore out the pages of places we visited as we traveled. The book was about 400 pages long and too heavy to lug around for a ten week trip without removing pages. It was very helpful but that was in 1969 and, as a college graduate, hopping on and off trains (using a $200 Eurail pass for two months) and staying at youth hostels or out of the way hotels in a four-story walkup was an adventure. As a “mature” adult, that would be more work and discomfort than we are willing to endure.
We have always said that we are not cruise people, sharing a voyage with thousands of others, waddling from meal to meal. However, this fall, we are embarking on two cruises, so never say never… I will talk about that trip later.
Our next big trip starts at the end of May for about three weeks. That is usually our limit but when we travel a far distance, we may extend the time to one month. On this trip, we will concentrate on seeing southern Italy.
Although we have visited many parts of Italy over the years, mostly separately, this time we will enjoy areas we have not explored extensively. This trip includes Sicily, the Amalfi coast, a six-day cooking class in a villa between Rome and Naples, and a self-drive trip in Pulgia. More information will follow with the specifics of where we are going. And, all this with only a carry-on bag! We love not being burdened with big bags and checked luggage.
By the way, I found a lightweight, small Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use with my iPad Mini. I am hoping it will be a game-changer when writing updates along the way. Another great item to have is a mobile hotspot to have WiFi wherever we go. You buy the small device online, purchase the MB you will need through your mobile phone, and then you have access to the internet for your trip. It provides amazing freedom. If you need to purchase more MB, no problem. These are some travel tips we have learned over the years.