#307. #308. #309. #310. Nomad Diary. 5 September- 2 October 2026. These Four Saturdays. End of Our Alaska Cruise. Travel to Alabama for About a Month. Friends, Family, Doctors, Resting Up and Packing to Go to Europe for a While.
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| A Gorgeous Location We Found on A Hike Above Skagway, Alaska Port |
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| Hiking View above Skagway, Alaska |
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| Phone Call with Grandson, Quinn and Son, Jeremy in Moscow |
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| Beautiful Day at Port in Skagway, Alaska |
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| Port in Juno, Alaska. |
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| Funny Faces Call with Owen and Esther in Alabama. |
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| Owen is Ready for Halloween |
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| Showing Us Who He Really Is. |
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| Porting on a Sunny Day in Ketchikan, Alaska |
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| Ketchikan, Alaska. Our Feet. |
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| Famous Canal Street in Ketchikan |
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| Adjusting Shoes in Ketchikan |
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| In Ketchikan, There are a Lot of These Stairs to Maneuver the Hills |
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| Flower in Ketchikan |
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| Ketchikan, Alaska. Totem Display at this Church Building. |
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| Sunset on Ship is a Favorite Time for Us! |
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| Arriving into Port of Vancouver, BC in the Morning. |
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| Vancouver Flower |
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| Nice Shopping Center Near Our Vancouver Hotel in Richmond Near the Airport |
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| Flight to Calgary with Some Mountains Below |
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| Calgary Airport with Buffalo Sculpture |
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| Buffalo Sculpture at Calgary Airport |
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| Amazing View of Sunset Looking Out of an Airplane Window |
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| At the Huntsville, Alabama Airport. Our Friend Delivered Our Truck for Us!! |
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| Grocery Shopping in Madison, Alabama |
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| Owen's 5th Birthday Party |
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| Bouncy House for Owen's Birthday Party |
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| Two of Our Four Sons: Samuel and Wesley at Owen's Birthday Party |
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| How I Love This Little One, Esther, age 3 |
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| Eric's Family. Erin, Esther, Eric and Owen at Bridge Street in Huntsville, Alabama |
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| My New Three Piece Travel Suit. I Also Have a Black One. Lightweight for Packing and Wrinkle-free! |
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| Cutie, Quinn on Call from Moscow with His Dad, Jeremy |
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| Off East Limestone Road Where We Walk in the Evening from Our Airbnb |
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| Vibrant Sunset Seen from East Limestone Rd in Limestone County, Alabama |
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| Esther Swinging with Grandpa |
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| Owen and Grandpa at the Playground |
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| Big Smiles with Quinn, age 6 |
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| These Beautiful Friends! We Met Alton at Our Tuesday Online Bible Class with the English Church. Back in 2022-2023. Alton is in the Khaki Slacks. He's a Preacher who Lives about an Hours Drive South from Athens, Alabama. Next is Diana, his wife. Hildah and Roy Moon, friends of Alton and Diana. From the first time we met Alton online a few years ago, he asked us to meet up for a meal together when we are in Alabama. We did. Now I don't know how many times we've met up or how many meals we've had together, but we keep doing it! We continue to meet up with this group a couple times a year, and really look forward to catching up with them all! |
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| Us in Hartselle, Alabama with Alton and Company |
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| Rugged Tape Repairing Holes in Our Well-Traveled Suit Cases |
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| Spectacular Sunrise Above Our Little House off East Limestone Rd. |
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| James 1:17 |
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| Walking at Swan Creek in Athens, Alabama |
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| Woodsy View during a Walk in Alabama |
Nomad Notes:
Today I’m combining all of my thoughts through September. Most of the month we have been in Alabama. We finished our Alaskan Cruise on September 9th. We spent one night in Vancouver, BC and flew back to Huntsville, Alabama. We had a layover in Detroit, which is a very nice airport. At the Detroit airport, while we waited for our direct flight to Huntsville, AL, we saw two friends from Alabama on their way back home from work trips. We enjoyed a quick catch up with them.
We come back to the Huntsville area often because we sold the last house that we owned, here in Madison, Alabama in September 2020. This is the same time that I began this diary/blog. It is now September 2026. I like to say that we have earned our Masters Degree in Nomad living! A few people recently have asked if or when we have a plan to settle down again and maybe buy a house to return to. So far, neither Darrell or I want the responsibility of owning a house. We have been aware of changes that happen to us as life is moving on and we are 6 years older than when we began. Other things have changed us in these 6 years. Our travel experiences; our children having children; our family members and their situations as well as our needs for doctor care and our continuing love of travel and adventure together.
Our first morning back to Madison, Alabama, we had a double date to get our lab work blood draws! Lol! After we went to my favorite lab in Athens, Alabama, which Darrell now says is his favorite too, we went out for breakfast. This began our times of doctor appointments, family visits and getting back to our church and many of our friends in Harvest. Darrell had his eye treatments continued and his eye has been without the clot since before we went to Alaska earlier this year. He is doing pretty well with it overall, but it’s slow-going he says, when trying to describe improvements or better vision. I’ve gone to my primary care doctor and my blood work needs to be watched for now so I’ll be getting that looked at again in about 6 months.
I seem to have had an immune system flare-up with my odd symptoms that I wrote about during my time in Alaska. Especially when I went to a podiatrist in Fairbanks, and he told me of this possibility. With this current look into my immune system oddities, I’ve decided to subtract some things from my diet and increase other foods. My food choices are based upon what I know feels good to me and what doesn’t. I’m mainly trying to keep my protein and good fats and fiber in a balance while using foods that I seem to get along with better. It’s easier when we are sitting still and I can go to the grocery store than when we are moving from place to place. Hopefully this trip to Europe will go well for my diet and my body.
We’ve had many playground dates with our grandkids, Owen age 5 and Esther age 3. We’ve also played with them at their house. We had a big family feast dinner and celebration for our second son, Wesley’s 40th birthday. Samuel came as well as Eric, Erin, Owen and Esther. We attended Owen’s 5th birthday party. Complete with a Spiderman cake, a bouncy castle and friends from church. We have enjoyed meals with friends from church. There are so many nice things that we’ve enjoyed during our 3 ½ weeks here. We have been inside with hot-hot weather forcing us to stay in air conditioned spaces. Then there have been cooler breaks from the heat and we’ve gone to our favorite walks in Elkmont, Athens, and Madison.
I wondered how going to Alaska would change me before going there for this recent summer and 4 months. I discovered many things about myself and Darrell discovered some about himself too. I’ve written about many of my feelings during our time there. We have both discovered that we feel better not being in Alaska. I think some of my feelings while in Alaska for 4 months were because I didn’t feel great inside of my body. I wondered about living there and what it is that kept me feeling off and having to manage my mood and my inability to feel my best. It may be a complex combination of things that I may never understand, but I felt better after being in Alabama for a couple of weeks. Was it Alaska versus Alabama for me, or is it my aging and something that was going to happen anyway? I don’t know. We have taken 4 Alaskan cruises through the years and highly recommend them for a taste of Alaska, and an amazing US frontier vacation! We sincerely loved being in the mountains and driving through the changing scenery of Alaska. I enjoyed the long and sunny days in Fairbanks and living in one place for 5 weeks. We both were awestruck with how we loved Valdez and enjoyed the most amazing weather for that little town tucked down inside steep and snowy mountains with the calm Prince William Sound waters. We also worshiped with churches in several towns, and made some amazing and memorable friendships that we will keep in our hearts!
Since leaving Alaska, I have texted my Alaskan friends, when a thought comes to mind to share.
Darrell and I have not had a plan for 2027. We talked about it through our months in Alaska and at times we didn’t talk about it. We had some plans that fell through and other plans were developed. Currently our travel plans are filled out through the end of January 2027. We have a roughed-in idea for Feb, Mar and April. For May and June, Darrell got us a housesit in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We’ve never been to this high desert location and we are looking forward to our 2 month stay there.
While planning our 2027 year, our thoughts were to look for month-long stays or longer. We decided to start looking into an app called ‘Furnished Finder’ that lists furnished houses with minimum 30 day leases. The houses for lease are 30-50% less than similar properties on airbnb. We were all in for saving money on our stays and slowing our travel down. We found a house for the months of December and January in Madison, Alabama. We have a lease that begins when we come back from Europe on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
In addition to using Furnished Finder, Darrell has been searching on Trusted Housesitters for month-long or longer housesits. As he’s applied to several and we have interviewed for several. We were selected and accepted for a May-June Santa Fe, NM housesit.
We hope to visit Darrell’s Mom and sister near Denton, Texas, for the month of April, prior to our Santa Fe housesit.
This week, at the end of September, I have been focusing on my packing for our 2 month trip to Europe. Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve gone through all of our storage crates and boxes that fit into our truck and hold all of our possessions minus a couple of items at our son, Eric’s house.
We have a flight to London on October 5th. We have a plan to take our storage crates and trunks to our son, Samuel’s house in Madison, and store them in one of his spare rooms. Then we will drive to our friend’s house, and Jackie will drive us to the airport and store our truck in her barn while we are in Europe. We are scheduled to be back here on November 24th.
Here’s our coming weeks plan:
Oct 5th,
Check out of our vrbo.
Store items at Samuel’s
Go to Jackie’s for ride to the airport
Fly to London
Oct 6-8
Arrive in London
Make our way to our 2 night stay near Windsor Castle
Get tea and cookies! Groceries, etc.
Be tourists.
Oct 8-15
Change our location to a house we will share with Jeremy’s family, coming from Moscow on their vacation.
Find the church nearby our house for Sunday worship.
Oct 15-18
Check out of our house. Goodbyes to Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn.
Get a train to Bristol and make our way to our seaside house at Worle, south of Bristol.
Meet up with our friend, Hazel to share this house. She’s driving from Kent over.
Oct 18-23
Road trip with Hazel from Bristol to Swanage on the southern coast going east from Bristol.
Check into Swanage house for the week with Hazel.
Paul and Debbie, Hazel’s brother and sister-in-law, are also coming to visit with us at Swanage.
Oct 23-24
Get dropped off at Southampton hotel.
Leave on a roundtrip 12 night cruise on Sky Princess. European Capitals
Oct 24-Nov 5
12 night cruise with stops in: Hamburg, Germany; Copenhagen, Denmark; Skagen, Denmark; Oslo, Norway; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Brussels, Belgium; and La Havre, France.
Nov 5
Bus transfer from ship to Gatwick airport in London.
Flight to Porto, Portugal
Nov 5-7
Visit with expat friends from Huntsville, Alabama, Chief and Kathy.
Nov 7-9
Lisbon (Sintra), Portugal
Meet up for worship with Portuguese friends of a couple we met and stayed with while in Soldotna, Alaska!
Nov 9-24
15 night cruise from Lisbon to Miami on Oceania Insignia.
Arrecife, Canary Islands, Spain
Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain
Santa Cruz, Canary Islands, Spain
A lot of sea days crossing the Atlantic
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Dominica, Eastern Caribbean Sea
Miami, Florida
Nov 24
Fly from Miami to Huntsville, Alabama
Begin 2 month stay at a leased furnished house in Madison.
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