Early Return to Europe

Phillip and I are deviating from our plan to travel every other year - we are heading back to Europe less than a year after our last trip. Phillip's niece, Becky, and her family are still in Europe but will be returning in early 2020 and they want us to visit

them again. During this trip, we are flying into Munich, seeing Becky and her family, then heading south and east, visiting Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania before returning to Germany. Our return from Europe will be an additional adventure. We will fly from Germany to England where we will catch a boat back to the USA. The boat is a Princess cruise ship, with a 16-day cruise from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale.

When we fly to Munich tomorrow, will will take Becky's son, Ryan, with us. Ryan has been in the States this summer, attending football and basketball camps, visiting family and friends, and helping us at the ranch.

2019 is a garden year for us, but by the end of July, we had filled our freezers and our canned goods closet with the harvests. The spring rains and cooler early summer temperatures led to lots of veegetables and fewer bugs. We set production records with our green beans, asparagus, and spaghetti squash. We left the garden on Thursday having harvested about 1300 pounds of tomatoes, with many more green tomatoes on the plants. I contacted a retired FWPD captain who lives on a ranch a few miles away. His garden had already burnt up in the late summer, so he will drop by to pick our remaning vegetables while we are gone.

I'm a bit anxious about our travel preparation. We decided not to get a Eurail pass because some of our transportation will be by plane, bus, and boat instead of exclusively train. I pre-purchased the train tickets for Austria as the Austrian train service website was easy to use. We know we can purchase train tickets at the station; many of our fellow train passengers last year had done that. It will be a new experience for us, and I hope the instructions will be available in English!

Packing has become easy for us as we do not overpack. No issues with Phillip over clothes anymore, i.e., no request from him to take blue jeans! Leslie will take us to the airport, picking us up at 6 am... We are very grateful for her, as she is also taking care of Zelda for us. So... heading out on another adventure.