After returning from the Caribbean, we spent a month in the US visiting friends and family. If you are expecting exciting reading about foreign places, then stop reading now. We love our family and friends and want to remember our visits with them, but it’s not like a trip report to an exotic trip to Morocco….. which will be the next post.
Boise for a few days
We stayed with our friends, the Stringhams just down the street from our old house. It was great to catch up with some of our friends, attend church and the temple and walk around our old neighborhood. It still feels like home, sort of. Well more than anywhere else at this point. Jenna and Adam and Charlie were in the neighborhood so they joined us for a couple of days.
Lindon, Utah
We spent a few days with our friends the Harmons. We were able to see our friend from Cambodia, Pheak Dey, who graduated with a Masters from BYU Marriott School of Business. There was plenty of work to do prepping for a move of Stacy’s parents, so it was great to be there to help out (full disclosure: Susie did much more work than I did….)
Ojai California
We took a couple days to drive to Ojai, the town where Susie grew up. We made a small detour along the way to see the California poppies in their superbloom in Antelope Valley. Susie’s brother still lives in Ojai so we stayed there and had a good visit.
I also spent a few hours in nearby Camarillo, my home during my later youth. I went by the old house, and also stopped in to visit Lee and Dale Talley, friends and church youth leaders during my youth. It was great to catch up as I hadn’t seen them in many many years.
Phoenix, Arizona
We spent a couple days in Phoenix with Nate and Josie and Jane and Niko. It was a lot of fun to see the kids, to attend a dance recital practice and go to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix.
Santa Clara, Utah
We spent over a week at our vacation rental and had family and friends join us for part of that time. We swapped out clothes and equipment in preparation for our next long adventure, stay tuned. Here’s a photo I took while walking near our vacation rental. The green grass is part of a golf course that winds through a lava field.
Richmond, Kentucky
We spent a few days here to attend the graduation ceremony for our son-in-law Adam, who is now a graduated Nurse-Practitioner. We had Kentucky Fried Chicken to celebrate his graduation from Eastern Kentucky University. Just a few weeks of study and he will take his licensure exam.
We also visited Boonesborough State Park, which includes a reconstruction of the fort that Daniel Boone built when this part of Kentucky was still a frontier location for the growing United States.
And then….
We are off for the next adventure, starting with Morocco, Portugal, Madeira, the Azores, then Luxembourg, Belgium and well, you’ll see in future posts. We plan to be away over 4 months. The hardest thing is being away from family and friends that long.
Here is an exciting preview of the trip: We napped on couches in an airport lounge in the Gatwick airport on the way to Morocco!
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