It’s been 8 years since I last wrote a post. A lot has gone on. I have four darling grandchildren. I started delivering Meals on Wheels as well as doing volunteer work with the Christ Child Society, but this year I have been doing nothing but traveling. It started out in January when Ellen Pozek, Jean Tobia and Donna Callahan traveled to Death Valley, Saguaro and Joshua Tree National parks as well as Palm Springs. In March, I headed with Donna Callahan to the Galápagos Islands and Machu Picchu. Then in May, together with cousins Ginny Kirk and Nancy Lamkin, we traveled to Italy 🇮🇹 to visit cousin Margaret Ewing at her beautiful home 🏠 in Italy where we lived La Dolce Vita for a week. In August, I travelled to California to attend the wedding 💒 of my cousin Valerie Gaino to Andrea’s Baer as well as visit my cousin Ginny and her husband Mike in Long Beach. 🏖️ In September, I went to the Shaw Festival in Canada 🇨🇦 with my friend Mary Ann Nofel to see the plays “Anything Goes” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” In addition, I traveled again with Ellen Pozek and Jean Tobia to see the Indiana Dunes and Mammoth 🦣 Cave national parks 🏞️ in addition to visiting the Bourbon 🥃 Trail. Then, on October 11, I celebrated my nephew Tony Piccirilli’s wedding 💒 to Shelby Siddons in Jasper, Indiana. Are you tired 😴 yet??!! I sure was!!!!
But there was still one ☝️ more trip planned to take, and it was to the continent of Africa to visit Rwanda 🇷🇼 with a former Lakewood High colleague Elaine Leickly as part of a sponsored trip with the Cleveland Zoo which would incorporate a golden monkey and gorilla 🦍 trek. I also decided to extend my stay in Africa to go on safari in Botswana with a high school classmate Maryann Ambrose. And if I complete this trip, I would then have visited four continents during this past year which seems totally unbelievable to me.
But the Lord was with us, as Elaine and I started our journey on a 6 am flight from Cleveland to Washington DC where we boarded an Ethiopian Air flight ✈️ that took us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 where we had a layover of eight hours until our flight ✈️ to Kigali, Rwanda. 🇷🇼 finally landing at 4:45 pm Rwandan time. The tour company used by the Cleveland Zoo made sure we were met and helped through customs. It was great to see some familiar faces as we arrived very tired at the Four Seasons Hotel 🏨 a very nice accommodation for my first night of rest on this new adventure.
