Traveling With Judi . . . .

It's been 4 months to the day since I left Portland, but it feels like lifetimes ago in so many ways!! Pam left EARLY this morning, so we've said our good-byes, and now I'm just sitting at a cafe in the Dubrovnik airport waiting for the final "leg" of my 2017 Italian-Balkan Journey!! I made it through security, customs, etc., and am now waiting a few hours for my departure (where I'll fly to Munich, then Venice..... stay overnight in Venice....then fly Venice to Amsterdam to Detroit to South Bend to see my Indiana Fam and meet my newest great-niece, Katelyn)!! A "piece-of-cake" trip that will get me there in a mere 40 hours!! One of the disadvantages of traveling without a plan and just trusting that the details will unfold as they are meant to is that sometimes it takes longer (and costs more) than originally expected! I had planned on flying in and out of Venice because I figured by June I'd be able to take a ferry from Pula (Croatia)

I think Pam and I might have a bit of "post-Mostar-depression" or else we're just getting to the end of the line on our travel timeline! We made it to Dubrovnik last night after another perilous bus ride (where the only options were to pretend to sleep, stare out the window, or watch the bus driver like a hawk to see if he's going to try to pass the car in front of us and make it in time to miss the oncoming traffic)!! I always choose the "look out the window and obsessively take pictures - even if they are all blurry and don't turn out because he's going too fast!!" option if at all possible!! I just assume all will be well (it's gotta be, right?!?!?), so I might as well relax as much as possible and enjoy the journey!! I learned this lesson the first time I went to Guatemala and rode on the crazy Chicken buses! I made sure I had life/health insurance and a Will written out "just in case" and figured that was all I could do to cont

We had the most INCREDIBLE day on our tour yesterday - probably one of my best days EVER for travel!!  We had a wonderful, kind, knowledgeable, hospitable tour guide who had LOADS of information and personality! Pam and I wandered through the Old Town about 10 am to get to our starting point (on the other side of the bridge), but got a bit disoriented as to where the office was (even though we had just been there the day before to book the tour) because there were so few people wandering through the streets!! Apparently, the day before when it had been so crowded was May 1st (a BIG celebration and National Holiday that started with a band parading through the streets and past our apartment at 6:30 am!!), resulting in many Bosnians visiting Mostar on Monday! Little did we know that the crowds would have been much smaller had we waited a couple days! Oh well - it's all about the authentic experience, and I'm sure the crowds would have been just as thick on Market Day during medie