As happens every year at this time, I sit down to recap the year, and I think to myself, what the hell did we do?  If this didn’t happen to me every year, I might think I was losing my mind.  It could be the horse is already out of the barn.

Karen had her knee replaced this year, and I provided nursing care.  I am not a nurse, but I have played a nurse.  Otherwise, we continue to enjoy good health.

This has been our first full year living back in New England, and it feels wonderful.  While we miss the neighborhood and peeps from our home back in Georgia, we are enjoying seeing our friends from New England.  My friends here tend to suffer from oversized hearts and undersized brains.  I wonder why that is.  Karen’s friends seem to enjoy more balanced perspectives, and generally a higher IQ.  I suppose there is something for me to learn from this.  Nah.  No matter – we love them all.

 

Living close to the coastline has really been incredible, and we just love this setting.

We generally don’t travel much in the summer, and let young families enjoy those experiences.  But that is more like a guideline than a rule, as we proved in 2023.  The good news is we got to receive visits from friends, which was most awesome.  Apparently, we seem to have a lobster obsession.

Notable in April was a trip with friends to the Masters for a practice round.  If you ever get an opportunity to see the Masters, jump on it!.

Travel this year was largely dominated by our son and his wife’s wedding reception out in Colorado, with many plans revolving around that event.  Let me just preface that any time you get to see your kids, it is wonderful.

We started in Washington, DC to see our daughter.  While traveling with a 55-foot rig in DC is no joy, once we got situated, all was good.  Can you say Uber?  Well, it was fabulous to see her.  We toured the U.S. Botanic Gardens (steps from the Capitol), had an exquisite dinner at Rose’s Luxury Restaurant in the Capitol Hill District, and just generally had a grand old time – so much fun.

We made a quick stop at Tennessee’s hip-hop capitol (TCPC), where we were entertained by none other than hip hop artist CN Cool Nay and were entertained by the rock cover band ABCD.

 

We revisited our old homestead in Marietta, GA and saw dear friends.  How awesome is that?  This was a classic Cousin Eddie scene, parked in our neighbor’s driveway.  I did not pull out the dump hose, although it was kind of tempting.

Being as though we had committed to bringing food for our son’s wedding reception, before the trip we purchased a used freezer and placed it in our trailer to haul food.

While traveling, we had it plugged in to a portable lithium battery pack.  Part of our food commitment was picking up some pre-ordered brisket from Franklin’s BBQ in Austin.  So, a few nights in Austin – always a good time.

Next up?  Denver and then Rocky Mountain National Park.  Our son and his wife, who got married back in November, had their wedding reception at a YMCA camp just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park, and it was a hoot.  So happy for these two!

Back in NH, this summer we welcomed Airstream friends traveling to New England.  We entertained here, spent some time in Portsmouth (saw Livingston Taylor perform outside in a park), and camped with them in northern VT, on South Hero Island.  So much fun, so many laughs.

By the way, when you invite Airstream friends to your house, this is what you can expect your driveway to look like.

And we had the kids in for Christmas just days ago!  Woop woop!  SO much fun.  Between walks on the beach, a visit to an escape room, great food and seeing James Montgomery Blues Band at Jimmy’s – wow, so good.

What’s up for 2024?  Well, we (Karen has) big plans, and lots of travel!  We will be coast-to-coast for sure, plus all kinds of cool in between.  Very excited, and it will be hard to wait to get on the road again.

The other change to 2024 (for me) is from a photographic perspective.  Up until now, probably 95% of my pictures have been taken with my beautiful Canon 6D full frame camera with a host of lenses.  Starting now, I expect 95% of my photos will be taken with my iPhone 15 Pro.  While in my mind the Canon is clearly the most powerful, the iPhone camera has become so good and requires a fraction of the weight, thought, preparation and a host of other qualities that I am very excited to see how our pictures materialize.  We shall see!

We hope all of you have fabulous holidays and a healthy, happy New Year!