We have our passport renewals in hand!…Summer solstice today…

Our passports arrived last week, but preoccupied with topics on past posts; we hadn’t mentioned we had received both passports by FedEx. What a relief! It’s good that we came to the US to accomplish this task, and now we’re good for another ten years. We’d considered ordering second passports while here; however, the amount of paperwork left us anxious for a break.

Sometime in the future, when we return to the US for an extended period, we’ll tackle that job. Next, we will renew our driver’s licenses in Nevada in September, as mentioned in past posts, and we’ll have these two big tasks out of the way.

Today, again, we’ll review all the countries we’ll be visiting beginning in August to ensure we don’t need to apply for any visas while we’re still in the US. Once that’s out of the way, we can sigh with relief and know that almost everything is in order. The only additional task is to sign up for travel insurance a week before we depart since the cruise line requires it, and we feel more at ease having emergency insurance while sailing and visiting other countries.

We’ll only sign up for the insurance a week before departure. I have our Cozi Calendar marked to remind me. Also, since we’ll only be outside the US from July 29 to September 1, we’ll only order the insurance for that period since the insurance doesn’t cover our time in the US, and we’ll be visiting family for about a month.

Then, when we head to South America around October 1, we’ll order the insurance again in three-month increments while we’re there. At this point, our goal is to return to South Africa on June 15, 2024, but we may decide to return sooner, depending on how much we’re enjoying the time in South America.

As always, when possible, our plans are fluid. We love having the option to make changes if we desire when a location isn’t fulfilling our goals and objectives. We can do so now that airlines are more flexible about allowing flight changes. When it comes to booked holiday homes, there are penalties for cancellations in most cases.

As a result, we plan only to book a few months at a time while we’re in South America and remain able to book the unique locations that appeal to us the most in between holiday home rentals. This way, we don’t have to pay for a holiday home while on other adventures.

Again today, we planned to drive the golf cart to Brownwood to play bingo at City Fire American Oven and Bar at 3:00 pm. With stormy weather predicted all day, we don’t feel it makes sense to drive with the prospect of rain and winds, especially when the golf cart doesn’t have windshield wipers. It’s been raining in the past 24 hours, pretty hard at times.

Instead, we’ll stay in and order Chinese food for tonight and tomorrow. I love the steamed dishes and egg foo young, while Tom is a big fan of sweet and sour dishes and fried rice. Today, we ordered off the lunch menu and reheat the food at dinner time. Doing so saved almost $30 when ordering enough for two nights.

Chinese food is such a treat for us when it hasn’t been available to us for the past several years, except for the few times we’ve been in the US. We also like Mexican food, but it doesn’t seem easy to order it appropriately for my way of eating unless we dine in a Mexican restaurant. I can easily explain how it should be prepared for me, which we’ve only done once since we arrived here.

We’re fine staying in again today during the inclement weather. We’re as content as we could be. Today is the summer solstice as described here: “The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth’s poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere.”

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 21, 2013:

There were no photos posted ten years ago, but there is a post about an earthquake we experienced in Italy ten years ago on this date. Please click here.