This is really going to happen!
We’ve bought our round trip plane tickets to London leaving Chicago on April 9, 2017 and returning on December 8, 2017. We’ve made hostel reservations in London and Bath for when we first get there before we start the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. We’ve also gotten plane reservations from London to France so we can hike the Camino de Santiago starting in early May.
As many of you may know (all 3 of my relatives that read this blog), I have sold my house and land in Southern Illinois. Pam and I just got married on January 17 this year. This is my mom’s birthday so I don’t have a new date that I have to remember. It was a small affair with just us, my oldest niece and her husband, Pam’s kids, and Pam’s parents. It was 3 times the size I had prepared myself for so I was a little nervous with the crowd.
We’ve since gotten Pam’s name changed and have already received her new passport. We are in the process of selling off the furniture and cars in the next few weeks. Pam is not quite willing to get rid of everything, but I can tell you from the experience of selling ALL of my stuff (except for clothes and camping gear) it is very liberating.
Marriage has caused a few unforeseen changes in me (mainly guilt driven by my new wife). I now find myself being forced to comb my hair at least once a day and if I wear the same clothes for a couple days in a row she lets me know–is she in for a rude awakening on the Triple Crown where we will wear the clothes for 6 months in a row.
Other than the last bit of stuff to pack up and store, we have to file our taxes and then we will be ready. There’s just one wrench in the works…
Ilana nearly died from digging up and inhaling a couple of fungus’ (histoplasmosis and blastomycosis) when she was 5 years old. Before she got sick, she weighed almost 120#. When we were going through the treatment, she got down to under 55#. So many times I thought she was going to die when I was taking her to the vet. After one and a half years of anti-fungal medications starting at $900/month which we were eventually able to switch to generics for $350/month, she did recover. She is my 6th Great Pyrenees. She never got back to her pre-digging weight, but she’s now a healthy 90# pup. Her sister died last year from cancer when she was 9 1/2 years old. Before her sister, I had never had a Pyr make it past 9. Ilana is now 11. I never thought she would still be around this late in the game (we actually chose the dates with her age in mind).
I lose sleep over this every night. Back in November, she would come up to me all nervous every night breathing hard and I thought she was going into congestive heart failure. I was sad thinking that the end was so close. Now it’s like Monty Python and the Holy Grail–she comes up to me as I’m about to pronounce her dead and says “I’m feeling better. I think I’ll go for a walk now.” We have a couple of friends that are willing to take her, but I’m afraid that our separation will drop her into a depression. I’ve had her since she was 6 1/2 weeks old. At the very least, it will drop me into a depression to leave her behind.
I’ve gotten her to agree that if she lives until we leave, she has to hang on until we get back in December. That’s almost 6 dog years.
In the mean time, I try not to think about it much. I’ve got enough stuff to do with Pam complaining about all she has to do rather than just doing it. I don’t work well with being told all the work that needs to be done. I want one task to do at a time. Women that think they multi-task are really just pain inflictors on those around them (in my humble male opinion).
In the mean time; please remember, I now live full time in…
