Late in September, Trace and I decided to take our final vacation for 2025. Part of this trip was like a “do-over” and part of this trip was a new destination. We started out by flying into Grand Rapids, Michigan. My sister and her husband drove out to Grand Rapids, about a 3-hour drive from their suburban Detroit home. We spent three days with them sightseeing in and around Grand Rapids, or as most Michiganders refer to as GR. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Michigan and have been all over that state, but I had never been to GR, other than to drive through it….

In July, Trace and I decided to go back to Vermont. We had been there quite a few years ago and absolutely loved it there. Now I know everybody usually travels there during “leaf-peeping” season (a.k.a. the fall), but I love the summers up there just as much. Plus, it is not as crowded as it gets in the fall when the rest of the country descends upon this state. An added bonus for us is that it gets us out of the stifling heat of the Texas summer. As it turned out, Vermont was having a “heat wave” while we were out there. Vermonters were just melting away in…

Way back in January or February of this year, my sister and I decided it was time for us to take another “Girls Trip”. With my sister living in Michigan and me in Texas, we don’t get to spend much time together. And although we call and text each other frequently, it’s just not the same as spending time together. So we settled on the dates for this trip to be June 3rd through June 8th. We went back and forth on places for us to go. We wanted a place that neither of us had been to, and that was sort of between Michigan and Texas. We ended up…

When I started this blog, it was to share the progress of our house being built down here in Texas. But now that the house is long-since completed, it would seem that this blog is turning into a journal for the various trips we take each year. Well, what can I say? Traveling is what retirees are supposed to do, right? Our first trip for 2025 was to Charleston, South Carolina. We visited there at the end of April. Trace had never been to Charleston, other than to fly through there during his military years. I had spent a long weekend there once when I was going through Advanced NCO…

In case you haven’t already guessed, I am talking about Michigan. The state motto for Michigan is “If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”. I would probably amend that to “if you seek a beautiful peninsula, look about you”. Most people think only of Detroit when they think of Michigan, but I can tell you there is so much more to this state, especially if you head “Up North”. Most people from Michigan (myself included) know that once you get out of the big cities in the southern half of “the mitten”, and travel northward to the “U-P” (that’s Upper Peninsula to all you non-Michiganders), that’s where it’s…

So, for Trip # 2 in 2024, Trace and I went to North Carolina. This is one state I had never been to, other than to fly through Raleigh a time or two en route to another destination. Trace spent a short time at Fort Bragg (now known as Fort Liberty) just outside Fayetteville, but that was many, many moons ago. Thus, North Carolina was a perfect place to check off on our USA bucket list. We spent eleven days in this gorgeous state and literally went from one end to the other. We started out in Wilmington, which is right there on the east coast. We spent four nights…

Well, Trace and I decided to whittle away at some of our USA Bucket List. There are so many places right here in the US that we have added to our Bucket List that we thought in 2024 we would just do the USA. Ok, so for Trip #1 of this year, we decided to go to St. Augustine, Florida and Savannah, Georgia. Neither Trace nor I had ever been to St. Augustine and Trace had never been to Savannah, so we decided to check off two bucket list places in one trip. We flew into Jacksonville, FL and then drove to St. Augustine. We spent four nights there, and…

Well as you may have heard, we here in Central Texas just happened to be right in the middle of the totality path for the eclipse of April 8th, 2024. Weathermen were telling us we could have cloud cover, but I think some powerful prayers must have been prayed because the clouds parted just in time for us to be able to view the total eclipse. I decided to photograph this “once in a lifetime event” as who knows if I will ever have the opportunity to view it ever again in my lifetime. For all you photo buffs, I used my Olympus OMD-EM1 Mark II camera with a 300mm…

Well, it’s a little early, but the bluebonnets are out in full bloom here in Central Texas. Hard to believe that these things are actually weeds. They are prettiest darn weeds I have ever seen! Anyway, there’s a lot right here in our subdivision that is spectacular. Every morning as I walk past it during my normal workouts, I keep saying how I have to take some pictures of it. So I got my camera out and here are the photos that I took this morning. You will notice that along with the bluebonnets there are some reddish-orange blooms out there as well. Those are Indian Paintbrush plants (also a…

Well, it’s been on my bucket list for a long time, so we decided to take a trip to Nashville in late September. While I don’t profess to be a huge country music fan, there are some country musicians that I really do like (Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Dolly Parton, Jason Aldeen, and a few others). And I really did want to see the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. But I gotta tell you, as far as I am concerned, you can keep downtown Nashville! Now I had heard that you can sit down and listen to some of the best country musicians in the…