COUNTDOWN...

Countdown begins today as it marks one week until I begin an adventure that really wasn't ever on my radar until Sally, a Milwaukee work colleague and friend, asked me to join her on a trip to France. 

Yep, next Tuesday I will be driving to Milwaukee to pick Sally up en route to Chicago's O'Hare airport for our flight to France.

You see Sally's brother, Jim, an opera singer, has spent the last 20 years living across the big pond in Marseille, France. Although some of their siblings have made the trip, this will be Sally's first trans Atlantic flight. 

In March we started planning as we'll have a full 2 weeks. A humongous bonus will be Jim has decided to join us for the entire visit since it's his vacation time too. Thank goodness we won't have to rely solely on my high school French! Jim will make sure we experience daily cafe time with either a cafe au lait/ glass of wine people watching and enjoying daily cuisine specials.

Sally, an art teacher will also enrich our excursions with her passion of Impressionism. Of course there will be the main museums but also not so well known galleries and special art exhibits. 

Planes, trains, ferries and city transportation with the metro, bus, Uber and our feet will get us to wherever we need to go. 

So the guest room bed in the End of the Rainbow Valley has become packing central for the next week as the piles grow and dwindle as the list to travel lightly will hopefully win out in the end.

Stay tuned...