With just seven months remaining, on my old passport, I decided to return stateside and renew it. While housesitting, I wasn’t able to use the one day service, at the nearby Post Office Passport Center. I was only able to get my new photo there. Afterwards, they sent me next door, to the main post office, to expedited my renewal application via mail.

A few days later, I received a message saying the renewal envelope was in Philadelphia and awaiting pickup. The message added, if not picked up, in 72 hours, the item would be returned. So, after several phone calls and another visit to the post office, it turned out that the envelope had been picked up. It just hadn’t been scanned. Three weeks later, my new passport arrived.

Since I was already stateside, I made appointments for my annual eye exam, got new prescription glasses, and had X-rays done. After walking 500 mile, last year, on the Camino de Santiago, my knees have never been the same. I was already aware of having arthritis, in both, long before my forty days of walking, from St. Jean Pied de Port (France) to Santiago (Spain). The X-rays now showed enough bone-on-bone arthritis to immediately schedule knee replacement surgery.

But … you know me! GGT has miles to go, before I sleep, and miles to go, before knee replacement surgery. When the doctor asked if the arthritis was having a big impact, I told him about walking the Camino, for my 67th birthday. He smiled and said, “See you next year!” He then called in a physical therapist to give me a few exercise tips to ease the pain. So … perhaps I’ll bike the final 200K of the Portuguese Way, on my next Camino, rather than walking. I’ll keep you posted.

Along with the Camino, I’m also wondering if it’s time to find more volunteer work. I retired, February of 2017. I arrived in Armenia, three weeks later, to begin two years of Peace Corps service. When that ended, I took another assignment, (a month later) in Ethiopia. Then, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic cut my service short. I relocated to Honolulu. Ninety days later, I joined AmeriCorps. I served in Sitka, Alaska, until May of 2022. At the year’s end, I left the USA and began full time traveling.

This year, while visiting Honduras, the 100 degree weather “made me” book an Alaskan cruise, rather than heading on to Belize. I’m currently poolside, in San Pedro, (think La Isla Bonita by Madonna) and have now been to all seven countries in Central America. It’s getting hot here, my 75th country. And so, in keeping with tradition … my next destination, after leaving the heat of Belize, needs to be a cruise.

Are you ready for it? XOXO — GGT