I love planning way ahead, and generally that’s what we do, but sometimes it’s nice just to grab an opportunity and go with it.

As was the case in both April (when we crossed the Atlantic to see the ABBA show) and July (when we house-sat for our kids before spending 2 weeks in Ontario), our repeat rental here in BC was pre-booked by other renters for 3 weeks in October. Our original plan for the fall involved pretty much staying put until mid December when we head off around the world for 138 days – just moving into a short-term rental a couple of blocks away during those October weeks – but I was more than ready to change that plan.

I have to admit that since embarking on our “homeless” lifestyle, I get a bit stir crazy after a place becomes too familiar. All our time in Maple Ridge this year, returning to the same rental accommodation between short trips, has begun to feel too much like being “settled down”. It probably doesn’t help that we’re firmly ensconced in suburbia without a car.

So … this week we booked a last minute “leftover cabin” cruise deal with Holland America (on the Eurodam) that will give us a different setting for those 3 October weeks.

Since it was a spontaneous decision, it will of necessity be a more low-key trip than usual.

We’ll be in a windowless inside cabin, which is something new for us, but it’s fairly large, and almost dead centre midship on deck 1, so should be perfect for my motion sensitivity. We don’t really spend time in our cabin anyway beyond sleeping and changing clothes.

We’ll be doing mostly independent exploration, except for 2 guided nature walks which we booked using shore excursion credits, so there won’t be the level of detail in my blogs that we get when we’re being educated by a local guide.

Nonetheless, I’ll still be blogging daily with Ted’s great photos and of course food pictures! This is, after all, our travel journal/diary to which we’ll return when we want to look back at what we’ve done in our “nomadic” years.

But before we sail, there are still 6 weeks to fill with neighbourhood walks, reading lots of books, and visits and activities with son #2 and his family. Being near our grandsons is, after all, what brought us to Maple Ridge.