The Dirty Dozen

Are we having fun yet??... from the Wandering Berkmans!

Greetings, all, from lovely Bothell, Washington, our current "home".  Wait, was Bothell even on the original list of places we longed to go to way back when this whole idea began?  hahahahahaha silly, silly.

No shade on Bothell (or Brothel as we keep calling it) but honestly, the twists and turns of this Covid retired life are keeping us on our toes.

Case in point and referring to the title of this post, when we last left you, we were hanging around in the mountains of Glacier, WA, and hoping we could keep the travel plans to England, France and Spain that Don so painstakingly curated.  The spiking Covid numbers and subsequent travel restrictions came fast and furious and so did the cancellations.  A Dirty Dozen cancellations, to be exact.  Days and days of work on Don's part to book places, flights and cars took about an equal amount of time to cancel and try to get our money back with as little lost dollars as possible.

We present "The Dirty Dozen", with the scheduled month of visit:

April-Edinburgh
April-- Dublin
April-- Galway
May-- NJ
May-  FL
May--WI/NM
June-CA (and WA)
July-- Marseille
July-Lyon
Aug--Norwich/Stowmarket, England
Sept-Madrid

ugh.

We held off on canceling France and England for as long as we could but the travel ban by the EU on July 1 sealed our fate.  We only just cancelled Madrid about 2 weeks ago, in the hopes that the tide would turn but waiting until the last minute would have meant more $$ lost in nonrefundable payments.

Briefly we thought- maybe Canada will take us? No?  Ok, how about Chicago?  One day we're ok with flying and the next day we change our minds.

So as it stands now, we have booked a condo in the Queen Anne section of  Seattle for August and a beautiful apartment in Missoula, Montana for September.  Why Missoula? Just an 8 hour drive to this college town that Don's brother and sister in law absolutely love (we don't agree on movies but we agree on cities!).  We can drive in a day and avoid planes, airports and hotels.

Yes, if this is the worst of it, we still call ourselves lucky to be healthy, see our families via some great Zoom chats and an even more amazing Zoom Family Charades (Right, Pat??) doing well, able to stay home and stay safe.  And the other silver lining-- we've spent some terrific time with Julia during our extended stay here in Washington!

Family Zoom Charades gone good!

We made the best of Julia's Zoom graduation from Western Washington University by including family via calls and Zoom (Uncle Bob asks the requisite "So you're a journalism major.  What are you going to do with that?"), a dance party on the couch to Seventeen's Holiday and a delicious Italian meal brought to our favorite Boulevard Park in Bellingham, where we were joined by friend Esther.

Congratulations, Julia!  We're very proud of you!

      

Mid June we were slated to drive down the CA coast and hit some wineries on the way but, well, you know... we instead opted to hang around with Julia in WA for another month.  Don used his mad negotiating skills and got us this beautiful renovated 1901 cottage in Anacortes, a town on Fidalgo Island and the hometown of the infamous Burl Ives. Cue Frosty the Snowman here.

See that porch?  Don's butt only left that porch to ride bikes on the nearby bike trail (to see blue heron and harbor seals!) and to stoke up the BBQ or the fire pit.

This home definitely fell into the "Can we live here??" category.  Julia agreed and stayed a couple of weeks with us-- they also fell prey to the lure of that comfy porch.  We had many a great meal, family movie screening and interesting conversation there-- it will be missed!

our Juneteeth dinner

Berkman is a Boy Scout

cheese plate tastes better on a porch

staving off those Senior brain farts

 

Other Anacortes highlights-

baking bread, bread and more bread

the tan lines will be interesting

this eagle, with a squirrel in its talons,  stared us down from 15 feet above us

we took advantage of Julia's web guru skills and finally got our website looking the way we want it to, with the ability to search by city, country or continent.  check it out!
http://liveabroadreviews.com/

virtual college reunion! the Douglass Debs and their families reunite, some after 30 years. We plan to find more of us for next month's reunion

we celebrated Don's dad Sol's 90th birthday with a compilation of photos over the years to some of his favorite songs. 
HBD, Solly!

Next month on August 16, Don celebrates 1 year of retirement, when he and D&B "parted ways".  Sure, things have been bizarre since March but it was the best break up ever. (cue Taylor Swift)

 Be well, all! Wear your mask! We think of you often and send our love.

Thanks for following along!  
Don and Monica