Harvest Time

A week or so ago, while talking with our German daughter about recent events in our busy lives over the course of the preceding summer, Annika commented that we really appeared to be enjoying "Harvest Time" -- by which she clearly meant much more than a glorious season of Autumn weather.

We feel fortunate, indeed, that we now have the time and resources and good health needed to enjoy all the travel opportunities we have had (and plan to have) during the course of our "golden years." We're blessed as well to have reached this stage of life surrounded by friends and family willing to follow our adventures as we gallivant about this wonderful world of ours.

And so, off we go! Ancient Egypt, here we come!

This time our destination turned up quite unexpectedly. We very much enjoyed our tour last December to India under the auspices of Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) and eagerly perused their catalogs as they piled up day after day in our "snail mail" letterbox seeking out some trip to take in 2009. Eventually we settled on a Grand Circle Cruse Adventure from Athens to Istanbul through the Greek Isles, only to find the entire season sold out by the time we tried to make reservations in early Spring of 2009. Our alternative was to plan to drive up to Nova Scotia in September to revisit some of Heidi's ancestral stomping grounds (her mother's family left New England to settle there sometime around the time of the Revolutionary War, not returning to the Boston area until generations later).

Along the way, however, we discovered that OAT offered "last minute deals" on tours with open spaces a month or so before their schedule departure dates. So, in late August, Lee began to visit the OAT web site in hopes of picking up a couple of spots on the Greek Isles trip we had missed out on earlier.

One did come up; but, although we called within hours, it had disappeared by the time we tried booking it. Heidi then sat down with the OAT catalog and flagged all those trips coming up in September and/or October that we might like to avail ourselves of should one become available.

Lee began checking the web site every day around 10:00 a.m. when, it seemed, new possibilities turned up on the "last minute deal" list.

And so it was that, when the CAIRO AND THE ETERNAL NILE RIVER tour appeared, we were able to jump at the opportunity and secure two spots on this upcoming fifteen day adventure beginning September 21, 2009.

Of course, whereas we spend almost a year preparing for our trip to India, now we REALLY have had to scramble to get ourselves up to speed on the history of Ancient Egypt as quickly as we could. Fortunately, we have found a wealth of resources readily accessible, everything from guide books and historical overviews, translated novels and associated film adaptations, detailed web sites and archeological surveys to a host of great National Geographic / Discovery Channel / BBC documentaries on DVD available from Netflix and our local library.

Since Egypt's climate is not unlike India's, we haven't had to do much clothes shopping this time around (aside from Lee's need to find a good-looking and comfortable summer straw hat); but we decided we needed to take along a guide book or two (keeping track of three thousand years of Egyptian history is totally impossible otherwise, believe me!) and, since the small net-book laptop computer I borrowed from the History Department at Cleveland State University last time isn't available, we broke down and purchased one of our own. Otherwise everything else seems to be falling nicely into place. We even got a good deal on our air tickets to New York City the day before our EgyptAir flight leaves for Cairo.

We have had to scramble a bit to finish up some local projects (or to postpone them 'til later in the year). In her role as Plymouth Church liason with a local Cleveland elementary school, Heidi will be delivering some sixty backpacks filled with school supplies to Buckeye-Woodland School this Thursday. Lee is finishing up an encyclopedia entry on the Immigration Act of 1924 for inclusion in a multi-volume encyclopedia on the Asian American Historical Experience. Our 2004 Honda needs new brakes, and the front yard garden design project has been put on hold. Otherwise we're close to being ready to go.

Heidi does have a really bad cold, unusual for her; but we have six days to go before departure. Maybe we need to get flu shots before we leave? Nah, that can wait as well ...

Instead we may well spend much of the upcoming week enjoying "Harvest Time" in our backyard garden retreat.