I Washed My Balls Today

They had gotten a little grimy, and there were some marks showing the results of being banged around day after day.

Now they look and feel fantastic!

Road Scholar

Most of us do some vacation traveling. For me, it's been a mixed bag -- some driving, some flying, some cruises. Some on my own, some guided tours. All of them have their pluses and minuses.

Road Scholar conducted a tour of New Zealand and Australia that fit my needs and wants very well. They just have their shit together. Our tour was well-planned and well-executed.

Road Scholar offers tours in just about every country, and a bunch of different tours in the U.S. I'm going to assume their feces is consolidated on all their tours. Some of the Road Scholars with us in NZ and Aus were on their Xth Road Scholar tour, where X was as high as 38.

The amount of planning, preparation, coordination, experience, eloquence, and just plain energy required of the Group Leaders, Site Coordinators -- they have to make sure guest lecturers, hotels, restaurants, sights, airlines, and the humans in their charge are all on the same page -- is extraordinary.

They never make you feel like they are cutting corners, only taking you to cheap hotel, restaurants, attractions, etc. You really get the good stuff.

My hat is off to Road Scholar.

Anybody want to see the "best of" photos we came back with? Warning: some of these photos were taken of fellow travelers, and will be of little interest to others.

Here is the link:  https://jerrysdownunderphotos.shutterfly.com/

I'm attaching a map to show where we went. The numbers inside the circles indicate how many nights we were to spend in that place. The penciled-in numbers are time zone changes.

A Sad Day

Today is Veterans Day.

I recently saw a list of restaurants that offer free meals to veterans on November 11. It reminded me of that day several years ago when I took advantage of the offer at Appleby's or Ruby Tuesday or some such place. Went by myself. Got a free meal. Didn't enjoy it. Won't do it again.

Today I will eat what I want where I want. I'm lucky to be able to do that.

There are a lot of veterans who aren't so fortunate. When I allow myself to think about them, and that is by no means every day, I am very sad.