A European Wine Cruise: Timing is Everything!

Preparing for our latest travel adventure can best be described as “stressful.” Of course, it didn’t start out that way. Several months go, we decided to sign-up again for a wine cruise that would take us to locations we have never visited, all while enjoying the fabulous wines that these European regions had to offer.  Besides the beautiful scenery of Switzerland, France and Germany, and the opportunity to try each country’s delicious wines (even though it was likely we would not be able to repeat their names), my sister, brother-in-law and several friends were also planning on coming along. Signing up for the trip was relatively easy and for about three months I was lulled into a false sense of security in which I thought that the biggest problem I would have was weighing my oversized suitcase at the airport. 

I was wrong.  Three events happened that made the preparation leg of the journey a near-nightmare.

1. Mother Nature:  When Bob and I are watching the Viking Cruises commercials (Just an FYI, we love the commercials but are cruising on AMA Waterways) during Sunday night’s Masterpiece Theatre, the commercials only show beautiful views, people toasting each other, cruisers making bread with the locals and everyone smiling non-stop.  What they don’t show is when there is not enough water in those rivers to float the boats.  That’s what has happened to us.  

About ten days before our departure, we heard from our travel agent that the rivers were too low and that Ama Waterways may have to make an adjustment to our itinerary.  She jokingly said that we should all pray for rain. I consider myself a faithful person but with everything going on in the world, I thought it might be a stretch to ask the Almighty to fill-up the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, just so that our initial itinerary would be a “go.” Frankly, I wasn’t willing to use up a chit with God for that.

It didn’t stop me from watching the weather regularly. It is not unusual for me to check the temperature  of my current location or a place we may be visiting, but my daughter showed me how to check hourly precipitation and that became a game-changer! I also began to watch the depth of the rivers which was way beyond my usual bandwidth and was shocked that that could even be followed! 

Apparently there were not enough prayers said, because our trip was changed and we will now be learning about and drinking German wines in the Netherlands and Belgium, where river levels are no problem.

2. My Volunteering Schedule: When I retired nearly three years ago, I swore that I would get involved in all the things I couldn’t do while busy making a living.  In retrospect, I may have embraced that idea a little too heartily.  Soon after retiring, I became an active member of a state women’s organization.  A committee that I am a member of had an opportunity to screen a documentary that was being shown all around the country.  I and one of the other members volunteered to lead the charge in planning the screening of the film.  When we started working on the event, we knew that we had to complete a lot of the leg work early because both of us would be traveling up until shortly before the screening was to take place. At the time, we thought that our travel schedule would be no problem…until just days before we left.  Everything seemed to come to a head and we had a whole lot to accomplish before each of us got on our respective planes. (The good news is that she is not going on a river cruise, but rather to a beautiful country. The bad news is that the country’s citizens have been protesting for weeks…) 

Take for example today.  Just hours before Bob and I were scheduled to leave for the airport, I found myself editing a document and agreeing to participate on two Zoom calls. Zoom is a wonderful thing, but I am of the mindset that at my age, I should try to look my best— a little make-up, earrings and a shirt void of pithy sayings and/or college names. I think people don’t find you serious enough if you look like a bus hit you.  As I looked at myself at 12:30 pm on Zoom call #2, wearing the same gym clothes I had on seven hours ago when I went to early morning yoga and my hair remaining unchanged since  I rolled out of bed nearly eight hours ago, I realized I could barely get a word in edgewise. Frankly, who would want to hear from such a disheveled mess of a middle aged woman? I could just about hear the bus after driving over me.

3. Deciding to buy a new shore house. We have a house on the Jersey shore and have had wonderful memories there with our kids, family and friends. But Bob and I are getting older. While great, our current house is a car ride to the beach and the pre- and post- trip to the ocean are becoming a lot on our weary bodies. Besides the cooler filled with sandwiches, snacks and drinks, the beach chairs, the Cool Cabana (aka a glorified large umbrella) bought for our grandson, but primarily used by Bob and the 7000 sand toys, the packing of the car, then dropping everyone off at the beach and then trying to find parking, we are exhausted before we have even sat down to lather ourselves with Sunblock 50 to protect our aging skin from cancer.  

Bob and I talked a lot about ways in which we might make our lives easier as the years progress.  We agreed that our serious adventure trips are likely to be in the rear-view mirror, as our knees (mine really) can’t hike up mountains or jump out of jeeps with the same agility of years gone-by.  As our trips may be curtailed, we decided that maybe we should look for a house closer to the ocean.  We did, we found a place, put a bid on the house and it was accepted.  The lawyers did the back-and-forth and finally everything was agreed upon…..today.  Today’s experience was clear proof that technology looks really good on paper. 

We were excited because we were told by our lawyer that all the papers could be signed by Docusign. Great news for us because while we are getting old, we knew how to use Docusign and in fact, had used it several times in the past.  Feeling good about my technology prowess, I opened one of the documents to sign on my IPad and nothing happened.  I then proceeded to bang my index finger 30 or 40 times on the line with my typed name on it, hoping that that little parenthesis would magically appear. It did not. I called for Bob to try and his index finger didn’t work either. We called our lawyer who immediately sent over a new document which had the same result…nothing. Fortunately, Bob and I are “old school” and decided to take care of business the old-fashioned way—go to the lawyer’s office and sign the papers with a pen. In between my two Zoom calls, with both of us still wearing our gym clothes and me with my bed head, we quickly drove to our lawyer’s office and got the job done. Mission accomplished  

We are now at the airport and I’ve had a lovely glass of Prosecco. After the last few days, I’m surprised I only have had one…Tomorrow, we land in Basel, Switzerland which is in neither the Netherlands or Belgium. But that story is for another day.