Thank you guys. I do feel very loved. I am extremely fortunate.
I started off with 4 items on my bucket list—2 with my husband and two with my two daughters.
With my husband I first wanted to go down to southwestern VA for a couple days to visit my two older sons, who live there. But they came up to the mountains to visit me as soon as they heard the diagnosis, so the whole family was together. In fact, the younger one will be staying with us for a couple weeks, so that’s great.
At any rate, I no longer have to plan a special trip down there.
So far, July looks like it’s mostly empty except for scattered appointments.
I am hoping my dear friend from NYC can come and stay for a night or two, and we will go around the sights of DC, eat at a cool place, and just generally hang out.
I am also hopeful my matron of honor (whom I’ve known for 47 years) can come as my guest for a few days to a really cool, historically significant resort in WVA, The Greenbrier. They have what I think is the world’s greatest spa service, a shower thing called the Scotch Spray. Google it !
Plus it is the home of a gigantic underground fallout shelter that was built by the US government at the height of the Cold War and kept secret till news of it hit the Washington Post in 1992. It was big enough to house the President, VP, and both houses of Congress and their families. It ran under the length of the entire massive resort!
My husband and I went there for our 25th anniversary, and it was super-cool.
Once we saw the bunker, though, he was bored with the hotel and had zero interest in the spa—so he didn’t want to go back with me, but is generously willing to send me and my friend. My friend has never experienced a spa. I will be thrilled to treat her to this pampering; she is going through tremendous stress with a family member this year, and I would love for her to have an hour’s worth of stress relief.
I am hoping I can manage to squeeze this into July too, because I’m afraid of how I’ll feel in September.
The two trips with my daughters were finally planned yesterday. Both had commitments till the 2nd week of August.
So Lord willing from the 8th to the 11th we will go to Wildwood Cres, NJ, my childhood stomping grounds, to stay at the classic neon-colored 1950s Shalimar Motel. I long to bodysurf while I am still able—I haven’t been to the beach since 2004 (my husband detests sand and ocean “gross stuff”
).
For this trip we are including my 7-y-o granddaughter as one of ”the girls.”
The plan is to do the beach the first day, then go up to Wildwood to do the Boardwalk and amusement piers on the second day—then the third day go down to Cape May and see all the Victorian architecture and hopefully take a carriage ride!
Then later in August the adult daughters and I plan to go to the Boca Beach Resort in Boca Raton, FL. My husband got to go here on a company trip when we were young, and he did have a plus one—but I couldn’t go, because I was on bedrest with our first baby, so I stayed ensconced in my recliner, and he was obliged to take his (delighted) sister.
Anyway, he has always hoped that I’d be able to see it one day, and he has very graciously decided that now is the time.
Again, hanging around hotels doesn’t interest him, so he has opened up this opportunity to me aymy daughters, who have stress of their own with little kids up the wazoo!