Thankful Me

  The front of an orange kayak enters into a waterway lined with mangroves at Biscayne National Park My husband recently re-retired, and we are front-loading travel. My#AtoZChallenge posts this year will explore our adventures--some pre-retirement, some post. Today's location: Biscayne National Park in Florida, USA.  Though Biscayne National Park is located in Florida, it would be more accurate to say that it is in the waters off Florida, as 95 percent of the park is in Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We knew that when we visited, we would want to be on the water, so we signed up for a kayak tour of the mangroves through the Biscayne National Park Institute. We met our guide, Daniel, at the Dante Fascell Visitor's Center, just as the winds started picking up. Daniel told us that he had some concerns about the weather, but if we wanted to give kayaking a try, he would be willing to take us out, as long as we understood that he might need to cancel our trip at any time. The...

  A snowy view of Antarctica from a cruise ship balcony My husband recently re-retired, and we are front-loading travel. My #AtoZChallenge posts this year will explore our adventures--some pre-retirement, some post. Today's location: Antarctica! A traveler who had previously been to Antarctica described it as "Alaska on steroids," and I have to agree with that assessment. Glaciers and icebergs were everywhere. Though on board a large cruise ship, the feeling of isolation from society was almost palpable, and combined with the vastness of the waters and land, brought to mind the line from the hymn How Great Thou Art: "Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. . . . " A flat-topped iceberg sports two cave-like formations near the water's edge Other icebergs, like this one, had jagged points rising up to the sky The large cruise ship gives a sense of scale to the iceberg that towers over it The clear water gives a p...