The Adventure Begins

We are Gale and Sue Lemmon, and are newly minted retirees.  And, so a new adventure begins for us -- life after work.  Gale was previously an assistant attorney general for the State of Utah, and Sue was a nurse practitioner with Intermountain Health Care's outreach clinics.  Now our careers will move from the major focus of our days to just a sideline -- and then only when we want.

We have become avid travelers over the past few years.  It began when some of our friends said "When we retire we will travel."  However, in many cases before that occurred one of the couple would become ill or pass away, or they would become caregivers to elderly parents or grandchildren, or have financial reverses that made traveling impossible.  With that in mind, after we became empty nesters we determined that we would go on at least one major trip a year.  Some years we managed two or three trips.

So, with this background, we are rewarding ourselves with even more travel to celebrate our retirement.  We have two major trips currently planned with a possibility for one or two more in the next six months.

Our first adventure will begin on New Year's Day, with the two of us flying to New Delhi, India, and then on to southern India to tour for 24 days -- with our own driver/tour guide.  Then we will fly to Abu Dahbi, United Arab Emirates, for a week, staying with our niece and her family who are currently living there.  Then on to Ethiopia for about six days to tour with our nephew who has been working there.  Finally four days in Paris on our way home.  A total of six weeks.

After spending about six weeks home to recover, we will then fly out to Romania, to an area by the Black Sea, where we will board a Viking River Cruise boat to cruise through Europe on the Danube, Main, and Rhine Rivers, coming out in the North Sea in Amsterdam, and then a short land tour at the end of the cruise. All tolled, five weeks on this trip.

While we are away on all our adventures, our niece, Careen Valentine, is staying in and taking care of our home.  THANK YOU CAREEN!!

Many of our family, friends, and former co-workers have asked us to blog during our journeys.  So, thus this blog.  We hope it is entertaining and will be a means of taking you along with us on our adventures.