We're back!

 So it's been quite a long time since I last wrote anything here...about two and a half years. Not too much happened in those intervening years. Let's do a quick summary.

Al had heart surgery the end of 2019, a cryoablation for his afib. All went well with that.

January 2020 we went on an 8-night Caribbean cruise for his 60th birthday; yep, getting old, LOL.

February 2020 we did our normal cousins reunion at Disney, and worked at the State Fair for Scootaround. In the meantime, we were finalizing all the plans for our bucket-list trip to Alaska. Departure was set for the end of April 2020, returning back to the lower 48 late September.

And then we all know what happened March 2020: COVID. 

Of course, back then no one had the faintest idea how long the pandemic would last. We held on to hopes right until late May that we'd be able to at least do an abbreviated trip up. Long story short, summer 2020 we postponed our trip to 2021, and ended up back in Wyoming, working another year at the ranch. No elaborations, but it was a long, strenuous summer. Who would have thought it would be a record-breaking year out there for tourism, with not enough help. We got through it, but it was not fun. 

This about sums up the summer!

To cap it off, Al blew out his left knee mid-July. As it kept getting worse, we headed back to Florida immediately at the end of the season in October, and he had a full knee replacement December 2021. 

January 2021 was filled with physical therapy and slowly seeing our plans to travel to Alaska that summer fizzling away due to the resurgence of the COVID variants. The end of January we heard from our employers at the ranch that the impending sale of the business had fallen through. They had decided to continue running it for the summer '21 season and offered us our roles back if we weren't going north. After discussing it, trying to guess what was going to happen with the border, we postponed everything again to 2022. Off to Wyoming again. 

Oh, and Al's knee was doing great. He really worked hard and did all the therapy and exercises they told him to do. He is walking great again. 

The biggest news of the year was the addition of a new member to our family. Introducing Cody, our Irish Setter.

11 weeks old when we picked him up in Oregon.

Mid-September on a field trip in the Gros Ventre, Wyoming

We finished out our eighth season at Luton's, and it was our last. The business has been sold now and new people are running it this year. We have so many wonderful memories from working there, but it is time to move on.

December 2021 we did a 10-day trip to the Everglades and Key West. One of our favorite couples, John and Carol Herr, were staying at the Naval Base in Key West for the month of December and I really wanted to visit with them. We had a fantastic time with them for the week. We stayed at Bluewater Key RV Park, and whereas it is expensive, it was very nice and actually had privacy between sites. And there was nothing that would be considered inexpensive anyway. 

 

our site at Bluewater Key

 

The Hemingway House in Key West

The Hemingway House is known for its cats, mainly the 6-toed variety. There's currently 50-plus cats living the life of luxury on property, all descended from the original cat gifted to Ernest Hemingway.

We did a day trip via high-speed ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park. It was beautiful.

Of course, a fishing trip for Al was a must-do.

The rest of the winter was pretty quiet. We did go to Disney a few days. We visited with friends from New York and my sister and niece and nephew in February when they came down during school vacation in February. My brother came down in April and he and Al went on a 3-day fishing trip in the Gulf and caught a freezer-load of fish.

Al with a queen snapper, one of the many types of fish he caught. Happy guy!

The end of April we finally left Florida headed for the Canadian border. And as I write this, we just spent 5 days in Calgary and 4 days in Edmonton. That will be a separate post. We left Edmonton this morning, bound for Mile 0 of the Alcan in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. We'll be stopping a couple days before getting there, so we'll see what we find along the way. In the meantime, the blog is basically caught up! For everyone that's still following along, thank you so much. I hope to have a lot of interesting things to share with you.

Thought to ponder.....