With Breathless Anticipation

Today, we hit three weeks in the countdown...only 21 days. I keep saying that I think I'll be able to make it.

There seems to be an awful lot that I have to do between now and then. Unfortunately, I have to produce the worship services for my congregation while I'm away (two of our members have volunteered to supply preach) as well as the bulletins for them. This is on top of my other usual duties and the worship services and bulletins that need to be done for the Sundays between now and then. Yikes. I'm going to need this vacation!

The picture with this post is of Marilyn on our first QM2 voyage. She and I were enjoying afternoon tea at the time in the Winter Garden. It's a very civilized thing to do. I look forward to several afternoon teas while on our 11-day sailing.

I call Marilyn my "travel therapist." She's a very good friend with whom Allen & I often have traveled. (Sometimes Allen hasn't gone and it's just been Marilyn & I.) She's retired and loves travel as much as we do. But she doesn't want to do it alone; few of us do. So we are frequently the grateful acceptors of her invitations to see more of the world. Because of her, we got to spend five weeks in Tuscany a few years ago, four of them in a villa. She & I spent two weeks in Venice in 2007 (which affords a leisurely pace to explore that wonderful, unique city, rather than arriving and dashing out one or two days later as many do).

Marilyn and we like to take it slow. Slow travel is a movement gaining some followers and springboards off the slow food movement, which itself was a reaction to fast food. Take it slow; don't rush through meals or travel or anything else for that matter. And it's a way of travel that I've come to appreciate. Rather than a tour that hits several cities in the course of a few days, I'd prefer to plunk down and get to know an area in more depth. Sure, I miss out on the other places I could go, but those who are sweeping through their vacations madly scurrying about with rolling suitcases careening behind them miss out on a lot too.

In some ways, this cruise is a combination of the two. We don't spend longer than 12 hours in any of the ports of call--only a chance for a taste of each city. But I'm looking at this as the little samples that they hand out in food courts and ice cream shops. I'm going into this fulling knowing it's just a sample but realizing I can come back and spend time on another voyage. I don't have to fit everything in on that one day.

Three weeks...21 days. Keep breathing!