Dipping Our Toes Into Cruising

I guess it was during our COVID lockdown that Tim and I started seriously discussing the possibility of taking a cruise at some point in the future, and in January 2021, we selected a cruise on Viking and booked the Viking Homelands cruise for May 2022. In April 2021, we added the British Isles Explorer itinerary to make our cruise a 30-day, back-to-back journey.

During the year prior to the start of that cruise, I continued to learn all I could about various cruise itineraries, as well as the basics of cruising. I found the Cruise Critic forums and regularly perused the postings there. I continued to follow blogs about cruises, including several from the Viking World Cruise of 2021-2022. For me, reading a good blog gives me a much better idea of what to expect than simply reading a guidebook.

Although Tim and I had fun selecting potential cruise itineraries, I never seriously considered a world cruise. Yes, I continued to read and dream about one, but the cost was not even remotely feasible for us.

Our Viking Homelands/British Isles Explorer cruise on the Viking Venus in May-June 2022, was simply wonderful. We loved the cruise! In fact, we enjoyed the experience so much that we booked an additional two cruises for 2023 while we were on board.

We enjoyed being on the ship for 29 days, and the idea of a much longer cruise seems even more appealing.

We Loved Our Cruise on Viking Venus

A Little Background About Us and Cruising

Despite all the travel that I’ve done the last 44+ years, the idea of taking a world cruise never entered my mind until fairly recently. I had a tiny bit of experience with cruising, including two very small ship cruises in Alaska and one on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. I had also taken a wonderful cruise from New York to Bermuda on the QE2 while living in Miami, and Tim and I celebrated our honeymoon with a Mediterranean cruise on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator in 2009. Still, cruising was not really on my radar.

Previous Cruises I Had Taken

I suppose that began to change when I began to read blogs written by RVers. One in particular, Two to Travel, included tales of cruising as well as RV travel. In 2017, I began reading about Erin's world cruise. I followed her entire journey and became intrigued by the idea of taking a world cruise. The seed was planted.

Big Changes – Possible Opportunities?

As 2022 drew to a close, I had no idea how many changes would await me in the next four weeks.

On December 19, 2022, the condo board for the unit that I continue to own in Miami voted to increase the maintenance fee by 31%. I knew that the board’s action would force me to raise my tenant’s rent by at least $250. Unfortunately, I doubted that he could afford this steep increase. This realization finally prompted me to think seriously about selling my unit. Property values had finally rebounded to more than I had paid for the unit, and now seemed to be an ideal time to put it on the market.

Today, I notified my tenant that I was planning to sell the condo. Although he was devastated, he quickly regrouped and spent a week researching whether he might be able to purchase the unit himself. The possibility of a quick and easy sale really got my hopes up.

While I waited for my tenant’s decision, I recalled a promise I had made to myself several years ago. I had joked to Tim that if I ever sold that condo, I would use the money to take us on a world cruise.

Happy New Year

My ritual on New Year’s Day is to prepare a traditional Southern dinner.  To ensure good fortune in the new year, black-eyed peas and collard greens must be eaten.  Black-eyed peas (symbolizing coins or wealth) are said to bring wealth and prosperity.  Adding cooked greens (the color of money) makes them even luckier.  

It’s a fun tradition, and it sometimes even brings me luck and good fortune!  Although not a “good luck” food, I do like to make a banana pudding to accompany the meal. 

Tim and New Year's Day Dinner

Might this tradition bring us good fortune in 2023?

Completing My Job at the Loveland Museum

When I started my job at the Loveland Museum in October, I knew that it would only be for three months. Today, those three months were up, although I will continue to work at the museum for a few hours a week as a volunteer.

It’s been an interesting three months, mostly working with the archival and art collections. Although the position title was Archival Move Assistant, I really did very little moving. For the first three weeks, we worked at the Loveland Museum, doing inventories and some packing.

On November 4, we actually loaded a U-Haul truck and moved most of what remained of the archival collection to the off-site storage facility. There were about seven of us helping with the move, and I was amazed that we loaded and unloaded the truck by noon.

The off-site storage facility has been dubbed “Panda,” and that’s where I worked for the remainder of the year. I spent most of my time compiling inventories of various collections, including magazines and sheet music, as well as items in the “DWI” boxes. DWI stands for “Deal With It,” and those boxes contained items that seemed to have no provenience.

Compiling Inventories of Dozens of Boxes of Magazines and Sheet Music

Later, I started helping with the museum’s art collection by sorting, helping to photograph, and wrapping the artwork. When Ashley, the museum’s collection manager, mentioned that she would like to have tags with photographs for each framed item, I offered to create the tags.

Creating the art tags was a fun project. Since all of the art is wrapped, having a tag with a photograph and description will enable staff to easily find what pieces they are looking for.

Creating Art Tags for the Hanging Artwork

Working at the museum gave me an interesting project to work on while Tim and I weren’t traveling. I also learned a lot about the differences between National Park Service museum collections and ones maintained by local governments. Earning a little bit of extra money was a nice bonus that will go directly into the travel fund.

Merry Christmas

Since moving to our condo in 2019, we have spent every other Christmas away from home. This year, we will be spending the winter in Colorado. We hemmed and hawed about what we should do, and Tim finally decided that we should have a tree.

This year, we purchased a small, table-top tree, and Tim was the one who mostly decorated it while I was at work. It looks great! I do enjoy having a tree and looking through the ornaments we have collected.

I had forgotten that we will be away for Christmas next year, as we will be returning from our Mediterranean Explorer and Crossing cruise. Therefore, I’m especially glad that we have a tree this year.

A Little Tree This Year

Merry Christmas

Excursions for Our France’s Finest Cruise

Unlike Viking Ocean cruises, excursions for Viking River cruises do not sell out on the day booking opens. I had been encouraging Tim to look at the offerings and decide what tours interested him. Today, we finally booked our excursions for our France’s Finest cruise.

We are mostly taking the included tour in the mornings and an optional tour in the afternoons. Luckily, all the excursions we wanted were available. I hope we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew!

Our Excursions