This was my first full year of retirement. All my life I dreamed of traveling when I retired, and certainly God granted my every wish. When I didn’t get travel, Manny did, so I have many wonderful pictures and memories for 2013.
On January 5th Manny and I headed south in my little green Prius that has 192,000 miles on it to San Diego where we met the History Girls. We met Russel Ray, the San Salvador, and the bronze lady. We faced peril in the Railroad Museum, and had to keep Manny under control in the Botanical Gardens.

Later in January I attended a committee meeting in Berkeley and had time to walk around the neighborhood and take pictures.
I went to Los Angeles to visit my friend Elane in February and so some shopping and serious eating. I probably visited my dentist, Dr. Moy, as well.
In March California Council for the Social Studies (CCSS) held its annual conference, Social Studies on the March in Burlingame in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Marches in Birmingham.
The next week the History Girls and I celebrated our friendship in Costa Mesa attending the play “Wicked,” which I had wanted to see forever.

April is the month for the Executive Conference for CCSS. As the President, I got to pick the place, and Vince prepared our house to host it here. However, that didn’t work out for too many people, so we it moved to Los Angeles to the location where our conference will be held in 2014 at the Sheraton.
By May our neighbors wondered if I still lived here. I visited my friend Elane again in Los Angeles.
My friend Jean and I went to San Francisco to celebrate her birthday for a couple of days and did walking tours.
Towards the end of the month Vince and I took Cindy and Manny to Kauai, HI for her birthday. The dogs watched our homes, and Kay and Mike East watched them.
We arrive home from Hawaii on June 3, and believe it or not, we stayed home until September 11, and rested up for the remainder of the year which made us dizzy.
Since we stayed home, we sent Manny to visit Ralph in July.
In August he left Ralph’s home in Spain, and traveled to London with Ute.
From September through November he went with Carol and Glenn to Cologne, Bruges, Brussels, Frankfurt, Tasmania, Toowoomba, Waterloo, and Wuerzburg. I’ll be doing lots of posts about these trips during the year. I just need to learn a little bit more about them, and Manny is being rather tight-lipped about the events of the trip! Carol tells me they have some secrets they’re not telling me. 🙂
Then he flew home with their daughter Melissa, who was going to Florida. She sent him home from there. His bags arrived in December from Australia. He had fun showing us all his stuff.

By September Vince and I contracted the travel bug, and went to Oregon to pick up the best Ebay bargain trailer on the market in Southern Oregon. We turned it into our accidental vacation when our truck broke down in Klamath, CA.
Manny was still on the road, so he missed my next trip. A week after Vince and I got back from our first trailer trip, I took a train from Sacramento to Portland, Oregon to attend the Oregon Council for the Social Studies annual conference, and to meet my brother.
After the conference my brother took the train ride of our lives going first to Chicago, then to South Bend and Indianapolis, IN for a week.

After a short jaunt to Louisville, KY, I headed home on a plane to CA, and my brother took the long way home by train back to Portland.
Almost immediately I had to go to a dental appointment, and stayed in Santa Monica, an took the opportunity to visit our President-Elect, Amanda.
No sooner than I got home than my house-bound husband wanted to take a trailer trip to the coast for two weeks. We stayed a week, then he went home for some appointments. I stayed in Avila by myself to write my contribution to 2013 NaNoWriMo, Girls on Fire. A few days later he drove back and picked the trailer and me up and carried us back home.
Less than two weeks after that, I flew St. Louis, MO to the 2013 National Council for the Social Studies Conference.

Manny and I arrived home about the same day, him from Australia via Florida and me from MO. It was my husband’s birthday, and one week later the three of us got back on a plane heading for Honolulu, HI, where we spent a week in Waikiki.
We have been home eighteen days, and today we took a day trip to the coast to celebrate our friend, Margaret’s birthday, but I think we are going to stay home for a while now.
At least until morning. 🙂
I’d love to hear about your highlights from the year?