Now that we’re free to travel whenever and wherever and however we want (barring financial considerations, of course) I find myself not caring to leave the home we’ve created in the paradise of Florida. With one exception: to visit friends and family that mean a lot of me and Randy.
We’ve been blessed to have been able to see a lot of the world in person. And through the incredible magic of modern technology, we can now live vicariously in the places we might want to see through the eyes of YouTubers, yet still sleep in our own bed. My absolute favorite channel is Gone With the Wynns. Click the link on their channel name and you can join their adventurous life on a catamaran sailing all over the world, but currently in the South Pacific islands.
Because we can go anywhere, see anything, and experience everything virtually these days there’s not much reason to leave paradise. But sooner or later, video chatting with those you care about feels….well…..inadequate. That’s when you realize it’s time to venture out for a real, honest-to-God, wrap-your-arms-around, hug-me-like-you-mean it personal visit.
We just returned from one of those.
You heard about the first part of that trip last week in my post titled North, Not Quite to Alaska (linked here). The second part of our trip was extra-special because we got a complete surprise bonus out of the blue, in a way only God could orchestrate.
We did get to see our nephew, his wife and their 2 boys briefly in Cary. They are busy, as most families with 2 working parents and 2 school age children involved in a lot of activities are, but they made an effort to find some time between this and that to spend a couple of hours with us. We hadn’t seen them for about 4 years, so reconnecting with them, especially the boys, who are totally different people than last time we saw them, was lots of fun.
We bid Kristine and Gary good-bye, knowing we’ll probably see them again in 2023 down in Florida, and drove 3 hours to our forever military friends, Bill and Kay, who live in Belmont, NC. We saw Bill in July when he came down to spend a week with us, but haven’t seen Kay for the 4 years since we’ve visited North Carolina.
Kay’s 95-year old mother lives with them and can’t be left alone so we spent time with them in places and doing things that accommodate that restriction. Just being around them is a joy, and it was especially so sitting around a campfire in their backyard, reminiscing of our time on Guam (40+ years ago!), and the adventures we’ve had over the years. We played games and scoured their yard for fallen pecans. It was a wonderful time. The next day we planned to visit some parks and have dinner at a favorite BBQ restaurant of theirs.
The next morning, checking Facebook, I found a note on a post I’d made a few days earlier (The only BS I need in my life is Beach and Sunshine) from another friend who’d also been on Guam with all of us in the early 1980s. She asked me for Kay’s phone number because she was in Concord, NC for the weekend and wanted to call them. What?? I immediately called her and told her we were also in Belmont visiting Bill and Kay and made plans to have dinner together that evening. Kay (yup…2 Kays out of 5 people), whose husband served with Randy and Bill but has since gone to on to his greater reward, was overjoyed to be able to connect with all of us at once on this trip. Since she lives in Illinois, we live in Florida, and we were all in North Carolina, we all knew that only God could have arranged such a happy coincidence.
We had a great time catching up with each other. But sitting there, in person, with these people who mean so much to me made me realize how blessed we are. We have the time, the money, and the energy to travel to see them when it’s not possible for some of them to come to stay at Grathen’s Last Resort. We said our good-byes, full of love and anticipation of the next time we’ll be together again.
One more stop, to see a fun nephew on my side of the family in Jacksonville, rounded out the Fall 2022 Friends and Family tour.
Next week we’re headed to St George Island to spend a week at a gorgeous beach house at the invitation of long-time friends who live near us and are the reason we moved to this area of Florida. Man….we are sooooooooooooo blessed. A week right on the beach, in a beautiful house, still on the Gulf coast of Florida, may be even better than being home. I’ll let you know! 😉
P.S. One of the reasons we routed home through Jacksonville was to stop at Happy Pappy’s Glowing Balls in St Augustine to replace the two light fixtures we lost in Hurricane Ian. That’s a story I’ll tell in a future post.
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