marriage

Bucket List trip: Grand Canyon

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Who do you spend the most time with?
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A year ago this week, we were in Grand Canyon National Park.

Selfies are hard. This is one of our better ones.
We stayed right in Grand Canyon Village. This was taken just outside our hotel—Thunderbird Lodge.
Shoshone Point—a wild and gorgeous spot in Grand Canyon National Park
Shoshone Point
We even took a helicopter tour—scary at first, but spectacular and worth the price.

This trip was motivated by the death of my close friend Carla who loved the Grand Canyon and whose ashes are spread there. (Carla is the person who set me up with my husband more than 33 years ago.) I would consider it my first “bucket list” trip of retirement, even though I didn’t retire until six months later.

I’m lucky to have a kind and hardworking husband who is willing to travel with me (within reason). He doesn’t love it like I do, but he usually ends up liking the trip a lot more than he thought he would.

Thirty-one years of marriage—that’s a whole lot of time together!

The Grand Canyon lives up to the hype. Go, if you can.

Related posts:

Experiences over stuff

Hot air balloon flight

Risky business

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
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I’ve had my moments, but as of today, I do not regret getting married nearly 31 years ago.

We’ve all heard the statistics that almost half of marriages in the United States end in divorce or separation. It’s a big risk to walk down the aisle and pledge your unending love and support to another person. Given that divorce is so expensive and emotionally taxing, it’s kind of amazing that so many people still give marriage a shot.

At my age, I know happy single people, happy married people, and one or two unhappy single people (they wish they were not alone and are still looking). I no longer know many unhappy married people, because they mostly already got their divorces and are happy again.

At this point, the widows and widowers seem to have it the hardest. When you’ve been with another person for decades and you lose them, the grief and loneliness is profound. It’s the other big risk of marriage—the one you don’t really worry about at the start.

Image from Pexels

Grandparents

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
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When my parents were my age, they were new grandparents to my daughter. They only have two grandchildren and she was their first. They were thrilled to have a granddaughter and helped me out a lot. My mother would visit and babysit at least once a week. I was lucky that they lived within an hours drive.

Outside of being grandparents, they were big travelers. They went on many trips to countries around the world including China, Japan, Russia and all over Europe. I have some beautiful gifts from places they traveled to.

All families have issues (mine included), but I know I’ve been extremely privileged to have two responsible, caring parents who are still alive and well and married to each other! How many GenXers can say that? I know I got really lucky in the parent department.

They’ll be celebrating their 85th and 90th birthdays this summer, as well as their 62nd wedding anniversary.

Here we are on the beach in Florida five years ago. I’m looking forward to visiting them in Florida next week. It’ll be my first trip down to see them in their “snowbird” locale since the pandemic. I feel so lucky that I get another chance to make this trip.