Well, I just could not stay away.

When I stopped blogging last year my intent was to do a YouTube channel but I just never got going on it; life got in the way. In the meantime, it felt like I had a LOT of extra time since I had stopped blogging.

And, quite honestly, I have really missed it after doing it for most of the last 13 years. Not blogging has freed up a lot of time, but stopping after you do something creative for so long means you no longer have that outlet. I really missed it. I also cannot find very many decent travel blogs; many are popularity clickbait and nothing more than BS, and thee is a ton of it out there. I want to pass along good, helpful information to people. As always, if there are questions you have please do feel free to send me a comment and I will respond privately through your email (if you prefer) or on the blog if it is not too personal (if you’d prefer).

I have never made any money from my blog; I have always done it because I wanted to. Maybe I will rethink that to some degree moving forward. I will still be focused mainly on travel, but I will toss in a few things about life and a little about what’s going on in my world. I will still be considering doing the YouTube channel but that will be, appropriately, somewhere down the road.

This week I thought about it and decided I was going to figure out a cheaper way to restart the blog and get back to doing one of the things I really missed and enjoy doing.

So, back at it! A few things to catch up on…

In previous posts I posted about camping trips with my long-time friend Dave and his wife. We did a lot of stuff together over the years, and lost touch for many more years before we reconnected.

I got a call around December 29th that Dave had a massive heart attack at home and later died. Six months to retirement and that happened. Life can be so unfair sometimes. Honestly, it has been a little tough to go in my trailer at times because it makes me think of him; most of the camping trips I took was with them, and they bought their trailer after seeing mine.

I also lost another friend recently, this time to cancer. Peggy was like a sister to me and was married to Jim, with whom I made my first Europe trip in 2018. I also have known her for many years too.

I wish them both peace on their journeys.

You know, it’s hard when you lose so many people so close to you in a short time, but as we get older the odds of that happening tend to get bigger. It makes you ponder your own life a bit.

It’s why you have to live life big. Go have the experiences you want to have, see the places of your dreams, do whatever you want to do that is on your bucket list. Yeah, it all doesn’t matter when we’re gone, but it’s all about while we are here that we need to have fun…it is about being happy and enjoying the things in life that bring that happiness.

Next post will be back to normal, and I have a BIG update to get this blog rolling again! It is really good to be back at it.

Until next post…

Shawn