Those are 4 words I never thought I’d ever say…and I feel so bad that I let my daughter down by not being able to go like she can… the lack of sleep and go, go, go the past three days has drained every drop of energy out of me and screwed me up so badly that I couldn’t even take a nap after we got into the rooms…and now I sit here trying to figure out how to recharge so I can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity I’ve been given…still feel like crap right now and had trouble just getting up off the bed a few minutes ago…I know I’m 73 but I should be able to do this one little thing for her…to dig down deeper and mask how I’m feeling…I mean it’s only for 11 more days and I should be able to suck it up and go..going to try like hell to get going…I am so disappointed in myself…
September 21st
Well…damn just got into the rooms at the Gallo hotel in Venice and it is a cool old hotel…but I feel old today with all of the traveling and not having any sleep in over 24 hours and I hope that doesn’t continue for the rest of the trip…we came straight from the airport in a water taxi and that was cool…and my jaw dropped when we got off the boat and into the city…way too much cool stuff to see and we’ve already walked 5 miles or so…the plazas are just huge and cool and Venice is just a frenetic city with all the people and things going on…need a little break here so I can recharge….
Getting ready to go…
Well…we have about and hour before we have to leave for the airport so I thought I get this last one for the day done now…we did visit the U of VA this morning and it was pretty cool to see the original buildings that Jefferson designed and built in the 1700’s…and we got to see Edgar Allen Poe’s dorm room there and that was cool, too…so on to 8 1/2 hours on the plane where we’ll get in to Venice at 8am local time tomorrow…then take a boat to our hotel for check in at 2pm…and all the hotels are family owned and in old building so it won’t be like staying in a hotel in Toledo…okay, time to zip my suitcase up…we weighed it this morning and it only weighed 36 pounds out of 50 allowed but I still left some clothes behind I won’t need…time to go…no more later…
So now the arch is a military installation…
Well…this would be funny if it wasn’t so damn ridiculous…idiot boy has just posted that his “arch” is going to be a military installation filled with drones and “mounds of sniper ammunition” and I wonder who they are going to be used on…I mean the Iranians are not going to be coming for DC or anyone else for that matter…but the idiot thinks if he designates it military, he can just build it with no oversight from congress…yeah, that’s not how this works…and if you read the post this morning, the only thing that will come to mind is that this idiot is certifiably insane…I mean are soldiers going to be stationed in the arch? Is it going to be surrounded by 12 feet of security fencing that would block off the major road in to Arlington? I really think that with all of losses he’s suffered in the past week he is really going out of his mind…and to see PM Carney from Canada get a standing ovation in Europe as he called out the idiot for what he is must have shredded any self esteem the idiot had left and, to a malignant narcissist, that is the worst thing that could happen and I really do hope this is the straw that breaks him completely…can you say stroking out? Geez…
September 20th
Well…the big travel day is here and we leave for Italy around 3:30 this afternoon…I may have overpacked so we’re going to weigh my bag with all my stuff in it to see if I need to leave anything here…I know it’s going to be close so I’ll get the re-pack done here in a few minutes…going to be a long flight today and it may even be 9 hours since Italy is only 6 hours ahead of us and we don’t get in there until 8am their time…still pretty excited about going and I can’t wait til the water taxi ride to our hotel tomorrow morning…once we get there and drop the bags at the hotel, we have some time to just walk around and find a place for lunch…my daughter paid for early boarding so we’ll be in the 2nd group to get on the plane right after 1st class…going to go out to get some breakfast this morning and the over to the U of VA to look around and then head for the airport at Dulles around noon since it takes a couple of hours to get there from here…should be movies to watch on the plane to help pass the time and I hope they have some I haven’t see…if not I have a book to finish that still has over 200 pages in it…so, here we go…more later…
I like Thai food…
Well…went out to a Thai restaurant that my daughter an SIL go to all the time and it was really good…spicy and the pad Thai I got was just a huge plate that I couldn’t eat all of…we’ll take a tour of the University of Virginia tomorrow so we can the old part of it that Jefferson designed and that should be cool…then on the plane around 3:30 and we’ll get in to Venice at 8am local time and that means about 8 1/2 hours for the flight…and that’s a long one…but I am going to nap at least for part of it…we have nothing planned for the first day since we’ll need that to adjust our time…there will be lots of espresso for me when we get there and we’ll be eating lots of good Italian food…going to be fat when we get back but that’s okay…that’s what riding the bike is for and I’ll start the new streak the day I get back…or it may wait til the day after like I did last time…will probably need some time to adjust and that would be perfect for a Sunday…it looks like my daughter is paying for the trip so that means I can spend money on a new range and getting air conditioning put in my house along with new tires for the car…and that is cool…time to read and then sleep…
A fun day…
Well..had a fun day so far and now we’re taking it easy before we go out to dinner…the tour of Monticello was pretty cool and I learned a lot about Jefferson…and it was so cool to walk the floors he walked and see what he saw from his mountaintop home…just to be there and take it all in was nice…it was so quiet on the mountain and you could see all the way to the University of Virginia that he founded…I’m still pretty worn out from traveling but we’ll be back at it tomorrow when we leave for Italy at around 3:30 in the afternoon…and then 8 hours on the plane but it will be better than getting crammed into the flights here…the plane we’re taking is big enough to get up and walk around in and just the two of us are in an aisle…will probably sleep some and read a lot on the flight…and I guess we get dinner and breakfast the next morning on the plane then we get into Venice and will start touring…and we take a boat to our hotel…lots of cool old hotels for this one and there will be a need for lots of espresso…think I’ll take a nap…
Canada says goodbye…
Well…gee…who would have thought that bullying our neighbor and largest trading partner was a bad idea? Obviously not the idiot trump and now Canada says goodbye to the US since idiot boy is such an asshole…I mean trying to get Canada to agree to give up it’s sovereignty for trade with the US…Canada’s PM said no to that and then moved to strengthen ties with the EU which idiot boy again threatened the 28 countries of the EU with “100%” tariffs if the deals went through…gee again..who ever could see that bluster and bullying wouldn’t work…and now the asshole in chief has threatened to cut off trade with the EU which would crater our economy…and now the Canadians have abandoned Florida with tourism down over 90%…and students who once came to the US for an education have seen the ICE thugs arrest their friends and have said nope…we’ll go to Europe instead….has there ever been a more stupid “president” in history? You know the answer to that and it is no…and the rest of the world just hates the idiot trump and gave Carney a standing ovation after telling them that Canada’s future lies with the EU and not the US…is this the eleventy dimension chess that the magas think idiot boy is playing? Yeah, no…he is just an ignorant moron whose bullying has stopped working and he is not smart enough to figure that out…bye,bye Canada…geez…
September 19th
Well…up and running a little later than normal today since I didn’t get to bed til almost midnight and was still up at 6am…still pretty beat from the traveling yesterday but I can fix that with some coffee in a few minutes…I think the only plans we have today is to go to Monticello and then out to dinner tonight for some Thai food and that will be cool since I’ve never had it before…I did sleep okay but I still have a problem with sleeping in a new place but the earplugs helped…it’s my daughter’s birthday today and she turns 49 which is still freaking me out a bit…I remember what it felt like to be almost 50 and it felt better than 73 but I still can move around fine so I guess that’s something…they live in a townhouse neighborhood that is really quiet and I can’t wait to see the mountains that you can see from here…didn’t get in til after dark yesterday and it will be cool to see it in the daylight…so, I need to get moving and and get the day started…more later…
Travel wears me out…
Well…just sitting down to do this at 11:20 and that is really late for me…the plane travel was plane travel with late planes and gate changes and we didn’t get here to my daughter’s house until 9:30 when we should have gotten here at 7…and I am just worn out after getting out of bed at 4:30 after waking up at 4am….but I’m still wired as heck so sleeping is going to be some effort…it was nice to hang out with my daughter and SIL after we got here…and she has taken a new job making twice what I ever made so good for her…so maybe I won’t write the check for the trip…who knows? We are going to Monticello tomorrow for the tour of Jefferson’s estate and I am looking forward to that…and the trip sounds even cooler than I knew…we are going to have huge amounts of fun and see lots of stuff that I never thought I would and she is already talking about another trip in 3 years…ha,ha…that seems to be the pattern and I’m not sure how I’ll be doing in 3 years but I guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed…I did get two rides in before I left this morning but that will be the last ones for a while…I did find an economy lot at the airport that only costs 14 bucks a day and I can live with that…so that will be only a couple hundred bucks to park for the 16 days…it’s not raining here but the weather widget says heavy rain there so that’s good for the lawn but it will make it grow too much to where it will take 3 cuts to get it back to normal…oh, well…okay time to read some news before I crash…