10-28-2018 How Will I Write About Italy?

UPDATE:  I finally finished writing all the posts about Italy on December 13, 2018, but will leave this one dated for October 28 when I first wrote it.  The rest of the posts have been backdated to reflect the actual dates that we traveled.

Current Location on October 28: Sunset House in Grants Pass Oregon Cloudy and rainy and 63 F

Our guests have departed. There is nowhere I have to be for at least another week.  Crashed on the loveseat on a only slightly drippy Sunday afternoon, I lifted my body from what daughter Melody calls “Landscape Mode”, and said to Mo, “It’s time to try to write the blog about my trip to Italy”.  She said, “How do you plan to do that? How many posts?  Where will you start?”  I said, “No clue, I won’t know till I get started”.

When I got home a week and a half ago, I was all ready to go.  Photos processed and uploaded while still in Italy, no less, notes kept on the calendar and even a few draft blog post days ready to be filled in and fleshed out.  But then, just a few hours after Mo picked me up from the airport, Mo’s sister-in-law Nancy came to visit for a few days.  It is fun having Nancy around, and we took things fairly easy while she was here.  In fact, I don’t remember much about her visit except that it was pleasant and we took her to Schmidt Vineyards for a glass of wine and wood fired pizza on the lovely grounds.  I guess I don’t remember because I was still caught up in a bit of jet lag, or maybe not even jet lag, but trip lag. 

Nancy left on Friday and on Saturday Mo and I packed up the car and the dog to go over the pass to Klamath Falls for a few days.  Not sure if my Italy suitcase was fully unpacked when I loaded it up again for the short trip.  I was looking forward to a day at Rocky Point at the annual Chili Feed where I had volunteered to be a cashier to help support the fire department. Long day, but still fun to see all the old Rocky Point friends and participate.  Instead of coming back to Grants Pass, we went home to the apartments to spend a few days doing maintenance things, Mo did outdoor stuff and I painted one of the bedrooms in the one apartment that we keep available for ourselves when we need it. 

We stayed only long enough for the EPA meeting to celebrate the final season of the cleanup of the Northridge Estates Area.  (You can check out the info here if you are interested, or don’t remember how this affected us).  Making a beeline back to Grants Pass, I knew that the next day it would be time to clean the house and rake some leaves, and sure enough we got a phone call from Nickie and Jimmy saying they would be heading our way the next day, and was that OK.  Of course that was OK, but I did have to rush a bit to get the rest of my stuff out of the Italy suitcase and the apartment suitcase and make sure the house looked spiffy again.  They haven’t visited since we finished building and moved in.

We had a great visit with them as well, 3 days and 2 nights of fun times, including a hike up into Cathedral Hills on what was supposed to be a rainy day and instead was quite nice.  Cool and a bit drippy, but pleasant.  Mattie was thrilled to have them here, she so loves company and of course more people around usually means a few more treats.  I told Nickie I couldn’t cook, and instead we went out to dinner at our new favorite little bistro, the Bohemian, in downtown Grants Pass, in the historic area.  Fabulous dinner!  The next evening we went to a crazy thing listed in the entertainment section of the paper, The Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, which is basically indescribable, but very funny, and a lot of fun, with a full house of kids young and old laughing a LOT.

We had simple tacos last night, watched the Streisand version of “A Star is Born”, and decided that the new Lady Gaga version was more well written and actually much better.  Never in a million years would have thought that this old diehard Streisand fan would say that.

I am here at long last, at the computer, with most everything caught up, and ready to start writing about my fabulous, incredible, magnificent, wonderful, amazing trip to Italy, with my fabulous, incredible, magnificent, wonderful, amazing daughter Deanna.  Three weeks of travel on our own without a glitch.  Well, I guess that is giving the story away, but tune in and the next few posts will tell the tale.  (I actually have no idea how many posts it will take, I will figure it out as I go).  Thank goodness I kept good notes during the trip, so some of the finer details and fun stuff won’t be lost.