Monday, October 17, 2016

Best laid plans...and all that

Well had things gone to schedule this would have been day one back to work after Cuba.  I've been blessed, I suppose, in only having one other vacation cancelled through no fault of my own.  It just seemed on this one, though, that Cuba wasn't meant to be.

All along I had this gut feeling I wasn't going.  I never really committed to planning or reading the required reading.  And then about four weeks out the trifecta of Bad Things Happening began, and I never left.  I recouped most of my trip cost, lost the airfare (although I can rebook on American should I have the bad taste to do so...hate that airline!) but managed to have to stay home due to a feline health crisis, my own health crisis from which I'm 8 days post-surgery and then that hurricane that hit Cuba the day I was meant to land there.  No matter what health crises did or didn't strike, it seems even Mother Nature felt that I just wasn't meant to go.

Having 9 vacation days to use or lose before year end meant I had to book something, thus I will be seeing our dear Morrissey in El Paso and Reno later this fall.  Reno, not such a bad thing as we're sneaking back to Vegas (my dirty little secret passion) for a day on the way home.

That doesn't mean however that I've not been busy otherwise in focusing on Africa.  I am rapidly approaching 100 days in the countdown.  After much hemming and hawing, I decided that we really should do the private visit at the elephant orphanage again.  After all, I have three new fosters to meet!  I also fostered an orphan for Kim, so she'll have someone to meet too.  So I contacted Sheldricks and got that all lined up.  We've made the second of three payments on the Rwanda leg and have one left for the Kenya leg.  Other than that, it really is all about the waiting.  I don't even need to buy much in the way of toiletries or clothes, which is sort of a bummer! Although I do have my eye on a new camera....