Relative Something

How about a little status report? There are a variety of plans in the works. The closest one to happening is a little weekend trip to Chicago in a couple of days for Cyndie and me and 4 friends. We purchased tickets to Second City comedy theater and may connect with Julian on Sunday to watch the Vikings game at a sports bar. That adventure will come and go in a blink. But there’s more.

February brings the return of a winter tradition for the extended Hays family where we gather for a weekend at the wonderful vacation getaway of Cyndie’s family in Hayward, Wisconsin. It just may be my first opportunity to test the new mechanism I received to help in building an igloo. It will also be a weekend of eating, laughing and gaming in the warmth of a wood fire with siblings and cousins, both young and old. But the best is yet to come.

Many people have been asking me what my next big travel adventure is going to be since the trek in the Himalayas is behind me. I haven’t had any plans to answer with, until now. Cyndie and I have decided to take some time off work and travel to Portugal next fall to visit a friend and his family on their farm. This is someone I have not met in person before. We are both members of the same online virtual community and first discovered each other in a discussion about trees. We both have a passion for planting trees. Over the years we have communicated often and developed a bond that computer communication allows people to achieve, regardless the thousands of miles that separate them.

Prior to that, I intend to participate in my usual June event that I’ve done most of the past 16 years, the annual Jaunt with Jim week of biking along with my sister and about 150 of our closest friends.

All of it becomes fodder for stories to be told and pictures to share, so there is hope for new and interesting posts here that I expect might fit the pattern of being relative to something for you loyal readers. I’ll see what I can do to capture it for you. Thanks for tuning in!