After 177 days, 36 countries, 24 time zones and 90 ports of call it’s time to bid our new friends and the amazing crew of the Oceania Insignia a fond farewell. It has been an incredible experience; our minds are still reeling from the places we’ve been and the things that we’ve seen. There’s a good possibility that the breadth of it all won’t truly sink in until long after we’ve turned this blog into a coffee table book and are browsing its pages sometime in the distant future. One thing we absolutely grasp in the moment, however, is how very, very fortunate we are to have made what is, for us, this once-in-a-lifetime journey.
There was no time for long good-byes or farewell pictures today. The ship docked at 6:00 a.m., we were off the boat by 8:00 and in a rental car and on our way to Orlando by 9:00. We stopped to see a friend in Del Ray Beach, enjoyed a short reunion with our daughter and grandsons, retrieved our truck, returned the rental car and made it to our new home around 7:00 p.m. Our two youngest grandsons will be coming to spend the weekend with us on Friday, and our youngest son and his daughter, Bella are scheduled to arrive from Washington on Saturday afternoon. Further complicating things is that we begin a five-week road trip in less than a week, so we don’t have a lot of time to get moved in. With that in mind, we immediately got to work doing laundry, setting up electronics and unpacking the kitchen. Fortunately, our daughter had worked with the decorator to have most of our other household goods delivered and put in place while we were still on the ship. We didn’t even have to make the bed!
Our travels don’t end here. We’ll be in our new home a grand total of FOUR DAYS and then it’s off on the aforementioned road trip with two of our six grandchildren. Our oldest granddaughter, Bella, and second-oldest grandson, Michael, both 10, will be driving cross-country with us from Groveland, Florida to Puyallup, WA. We have adventures planned all along the way and can hardly wait to get started. Stay tuned for more updates from the road.
P.S. In January Ken’s phone provided him with a map of all of the places his phone had been in 2019. We’ve attached a copy of the map illustrating the places we visited during the cruise. It’s kinda fun to see it expressed this way.
JodockWorldTravel 
What a neat post! You two are certainly the world travelers – and then some! Must feel good to be able to stay put in one place for a while. And a beautiful place it is to call home!
Welcome Home!
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