So first of all, I am not going to get finished blogging about the finish of our roadtrip. While I hate that as we visited some beautiful places and had a great time that I would love to share, there just isn’t enough time to do it justice between now (Sunday, March 1) and Thursday when we fly to Miami. Instead immediately following this post I am going to do one last post that will show our route and thank those friends we met along the way. If you have any questions about any of our stops, feel free to ask in the blog.

So the main reason I haven’t gotten done is we have bought a condo! While in Raleigh last month we decided it would be prudent to re-familiarize ourselves with the real estate market there. It is a very hot market particularly in the under $250,000 price range. Most places stay on the market less than a day. Some are sold before they are listed. Our thought had been we would be able to remove potential condominiums from consideration and be ready to make a purchase when we return from Europe later in the spring.

However, a unit became available at a good price that ticked all our boxes-well almost-we can’t grill and it’s in the Country Club which is an expense we really don’t think will serve us much. But otherwise it’s pretty perfect-or will be after some paint and hopefully a little more matching wood floor.

So, after two years of looking around the world, we end up back in Raleigh. While we loved almost everywhere we visited, it was just that a visit…the call of being close to family and friends won out over the excitement and adventure of becoming Ex-pats. We hope to still travel a good bit though I suspect until the stock market recovers from the Corona Recession, it won’t be quite as much as we like.

We closed last Friday, are moving the little bit of furniture and boxes we have in on Tuesday and leave Thursday afternoon for Miami. We board Viking Sky on Friday and sail to Barcelona disembarking on March 20. From there we will spend about a week in southern Spain including connecting with Elizabeth (we met on our cruise to Japan) in Granada and Malaga before we fly to Budapest for three weeks. Our friends Larry & Doug from outside Chicago will meet us there in early April and after a week there, we are all going to Kraków for a week. They fly back and Mike and I stay until April 21st when we fly to London to meet our niece Madison and her BFF and doubles partner Katie. With them we will stay 5 nights in London and then 5 nights in Paris before we all fly back together on May 2nd. Initially we had planned on staying longer but the One World airlines had a biz class sale yesterday that meant we were able to purchase round trip tickets for under $1,300 each. So we will be making a trip back in November (hopefully with our friends Fraser and Brian) to Spain and/or Portugal. Mike and I are watching a Viking transatlantic that would get us back to states by mid December. So maybe we will have Christmas at our new place this year instead of traveling to others.

Anyhow, sorry again about cutting the roadtrip blog short but hope you understand I’ve been unexpectedly busy the last two weeks. Here are some pictures of our new place, hopefully soon it will be prettier than it is now especially if we can get the wood floor extended to the door to the balcony. And hope you’ll come visit-but wait for us to get a bes for the guestroom please