October 21, 2024

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a year since we returned from our second season in Europe. We had planned to continue east, through Turkey, Georgia, and beyond, but some bad news had us changing plans and delaying our travels for a bit.

In June of last year, we came home for a surprise 90th birthday party for Diana’s mom. In a funny twist, the surprise was on us: Diana’s parents had taken a trip of their own, and weren’t going to be home on her birthday!

While we were back in Texas, Diana scheduled some regular doctor visits, and that’s when we found out she had Stage Zero breast cancer. At that point we decided to put a hold on our travels while we scheduled surgery and treatment. I flew back to Bulgaria in July, rode the bike back through Romania, Hungary, and Austria to Germany, made arrangements to ship the bike home, and flew back to be with Diana.

Fast forward to today: Diana just celebrated her one year anniversary of being cancer free. She’s doing great, and while we are still home and relaxing here (and hosting other travelers as they pass through), we haven’t stopped discussing our future travels. Even though I was feeling a bit “worn out” by years of travel across 66 countries, Diana didn’t get to go along with me on my first trip through South America and Africa, so even after all she’s been through in the last year — or perhaps because of it — she’s still itching to go. I’m getting there…a year home has helped rejuvenate my wanderlust, so perhaps we will hit the road again before long. There’s still a lot of world we haven’t seen.

Meanwhile, I realized that I had never posted our Morocco video to the blog. So, to clear that up…here it is: