The first and last trip Bill and I ever took off Continental USA was to Hawaii. Our youngest daughter and SIL surprised us with the trip. For them it was an anniversary present to themselves. That's where they went on their honeymoon and they've been back every year. So the trip wasn't just the two of us. During the entire trip I kept wishing we had been able to do this when Bill could really enjoy it and remember it. There was only one occasion when we wanted to go snorkling in one of the coral coves and had to stand and watch a film clip before they would let us on the beach. Bill fainted while watching the clip; we hesitated about going after that, but decided to do it. The kids went out while I sat on the beach next to Bill who was sleeping under a palm tree. Out daughter traded places with me and my SIL took me snorkling for the first time in my life. Bill always liked sports of any kind and would have loved it.
He remembered going to Hawaii for two or three years, but has now forgotten it along with everything else.
The kids did take us to San Francisco two Christmases ago. Bill needed a wheel chair to get around, but we managed with my SIL doing 99% of the pushing. Those hills are murder in a wheelchair.
I vote that you take your trip, the physical part can be compensated for and the memories will be worth it.
Joan, I took my husband across Canada in a motor home in June , we had always planned to do that on his retiement as he is from the east coast. Many people told me not to do it and now I am so glad we did. He often retells stories and talks about the people we visited with. We also went to Vegas last Christmas because it was something he always wanted to do. That was a bit harder with all the people and keeping him in sight as he was already easily getting lost. But I am also glad we did that trip. As for your trip I think Italy would make an excellent vacation spot, I have been there a couple of times and the people are so friendly and understanding. the cobblestone paths are easily negotiated. Which city would you visit? Florence is my pesonal favorite, but it is an easy drive to Rome and a stop at Assisi is a must if you can. I find planning for the trip as exciting as taking it, all the research etc. So enjoy your planning and hold on to the special memories, AD can rob our loved ones but it can not rob us of our memories. Kathy
I remember in the spring of 2001 I took the family and my husband to Disney World....he always said he couldn't wait to be a grandpa and take his grands to see The Mouse! Well, at that point we only had one grandson and he wasn't even two years old, but I realized that if we waited any longer we never would have been able to make the trip. It was not easy, but we all still remember that trip. The memories you will make are worth the effort. Now when we go to Disney World with all the kids we always manage to tell them about how grandpa loved to visit the Magic Kingdom and I always bring him back a souvenir.....
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but it is so related to this blog and these posts, bear with me if it is a repeat.
When Sid and I were first married, his father was only 60 years old, disabled due to an arm injury, and retired. His mother was working. They kept saying that as soon as she retired (maybe in another 3-4 years), they would travel the world. His father became very ill that year, in and out of hospitals, and by the next year, was dead of conjestive heart failure. I was barely 23 years old; Sid was 29, and we vowed to each other right then and there, that we would not wait to travel and enjoy the trips TOGETHER, because who knew what the future would hold. For the first 20 years of our marriage, we cruised the Carribbean, the Mexican Riviera; we took Joel to Disney; to the mountains in New Hampshire. Sid and I held hands snorkeling in Aruba. Believe me, there were years we couldn't afford to travel, so we took shorter trips. By the mid 90's, we had a lot of friends and relatives down here in Florida, so we bought Marriott Time Share on the ocean, and vacationed here every school vacation.
Then Joel moved to San Francisco in 97, and we started visiting that wonderful city. We toured the city; did the walking tour of Alcatraz; had the laughs of a lifetime in a trans-whatever nightclub, in which the men dressed as women were better looking that I ever was. In 2000, Joel moved to Hawaii for 3 years. What fabulous times we had in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor; Waikiki Beach; touring Maui; the luaus; the breathtaking Waimea (sp?) Canyon in Kuai. Snorkeling in Molokini. Then there was the dolphin year - 2003, right before Sid's symptoms became too obvious to ignore. Nothing we have ever done has surpassed swimming with the dolphins in Discovery Cove. It is a memory I will carry for the rest of my life. I have not one regret for going and doing when Sid was physically and mentally able. I would recommend every young couple to do the same.
So as I said in the Blog, I am selfish - I want one more trip that we can enjoy together. (Money is limited now, but how can I resist a trip that is paid for by Marriott points?????) Because his physical disability limits his walking to about 1/2 a block, I don't mind pushing him in a wheelchair. I would rather share the sights with him in a wheelchair than go by myself. I know the memories won't last for him, but the moments of enjoyment will, and I will have the memories.
Yep. I should plan one. I have a couple of ideas, with our young adult children. But--and this is a problem all here will recognize--my gumption for being the sole planner, sole instigator, solitarily trying to ramp myself into trip planning mode is, well, low. I will try to take a cue from this thread and do it anyway.
Well Joan, sounds like you and Sid have had some very great opportunities to enjoy travel as well as create a fabulous memory vault, good for you! :) JR and I are fortunate and had some fantastic trips pre AD, the only one we have done since are the two I mentioned. I am not sure I would tackle another big trip at this stage. But we do still plan to do a couple of road trips in both our car and this summer we will make use of the motor home as well. Nothing like sitting by a fire on the shore of a lake and the base of a mountain for a backdrop. I would still look at Italy, it is a wonderful wam and friendly place to be. I agree holding hands and snorkeling is an experience that every couple should try to ej=njoy. It is amazing how the problems of life dissapear when you are marvelling at the life under sea!. happy planning Kathy
Ralph always said we would not wait until we retired to travel and we did not wait. I have many happy memories of the places in the states we have visited and also Europe, including several business trips we combined with pleasure. We took two trips after he was diagnosed to Holland, Switzerland and Scotland. We stayed in apartments and had train passes in Holland and Switzerland. We traveled with our daughter and son-in-law in Scotland. We did love to travel. He does not remember our trips, but I have those memories, Including snorkeling in Mexico. Do go for what you think you can handle Joan. We went at a much slower pace after he was diagnosed, but it was great. Darlene
I envy all of you for your trips. Gord would not go anywhere or do anything. Perhaps I have not been robbed by AD as much as most of you have. I know that retirement would have been easier than what we have but there would have been no trips of any kind. When our son got married in Japan in September of 2001, I left Canada for the second time in my life. I had never had a passport. Gord refused to go and to this day, our DIL thinks it was because of a bad back.
I too was very fortunate to have been able to travel before AD robbed us. Lewis was an Airline Captain so I tried to go with him on as many trips as I possibly could. On vacation we loved going to Hawaii, Mexico,Canada and the Caribbean, we just loved having fun together. My husband was a fun person to be with, always smiling. He has lived his life to the fullest and for that I am so happy. His motto during our marriage was "If it's fun, let's do it", and we did !!!!
We bought a Corvette in 1999 and traveled with the Las Vegas Corvette Club all over Arizona, California and Utah. It was so beautiful and so much fun. Our favorite nostalgic trip was down Route 66. He had always wanted to drive that route in a Corvette and he got his wish before we were confronted with AD. He was diagnosed in 2003.
We took a few more trips after 2003 and we had a nice time, but, we also had to go at a much slower pace and I also found that he got anxious and a little agitated when we were somewhere strange to him. After 2005, we had to stop the airline trips as he was getting very confused and sometimes thought he was the Airline Captain and wanted to fly the airplane. I had a hard time getting him to stay in his seat. Also, when he went into the little airplane bathrooms, he did not want me to close the door. It got to be too much for him and me. As we all know, after 9-11, things got very tight on security, so, getting up during a flight was not an option.
In 2006, we re-located from Las Vegas( where we lived for 16 yrs) to Corpus Christi where we could be closer to the beach. We both love the water and we live only 25 minutes from the Bay and the Beach, so, we still got to go together and walk on the beach and just sit out and watch the birds, listen to the waves hitting the shore, etc. When he would start getting anxious or a little agitated, I would make sandwiches, get our beach chairs and umbrella and we would just head to the beach. This was so calming for him. Padre National Seashore has the little turtle releases and he loved going to that area to watch them head from the shore to the water. We also have some beautiful Bird Reserves in this area, so, we would take our chairs and just watch all the different kinds of birds and just sit on the Bay holding hands.
Lewis is now in a NH, but, at least I have the many memories we made together. I now have two little Granddaughters who will go to the Beach and Bay with NaNa. I will now be building Sandcastles and Memories with my two precious grandchildren (Ashlynn and Kaylee). This is not the way we planned as we all thought Granddaddy would also be a part of this building of Memories and Sandcastles with us, but, as hard as it gets, life does go on.
Today, we will all go to the NH to be with "Granddaddy". The little ones love to help me push him in his wheelchair and they love hugging him, so, I guess you can say we are adapting as best we can. TAKE THOSE TRIPS AND MAKE THOSE MEMORIES WHILE YOU STILL CAN !!!! Kay Kay
M and I traveled a lot when we were single. M had a private pilot's license and loved to fly small general aviation airplanes. After marriage, we traveled around Texas visiting relatives. Visiting her aunt and uncle on the huge Spade Ranch was always fun in west Texas.
Then in 2003 M was diagnosed with AD. Our travels now became an occasional trip to nearby Denton, Texas to visit her one time farm where she grew up and to walk around the Denton square. Nowadays, she is totally confused most of the time and I am her 24/7 caregiver. We don't travel anymore. An hour's drive to Dallas to visit our son's family is a very long journey for her today.
I posted an 8x10 black and white 1962 photo of her at the controls of a Piper J3 Cub airplane here in my computer room where she sees it several times a day. She always stops at that photo and says a few words about love of flying and then wanders away.
When we took car trips around the US my husband was always anxioius about the car and where we would stay the night. He never wanted to take any byways or go off-road. I didn't know, at the time, that personallitay quirk was part of early AD. In 1980 our daughter married a Frenchman & moved to France. We went at least once a yr for years, and my husband never really wanted to go, and it was on a day-tour to Bruge in Belgium that he really lost it and I knew, once and for all, that something was terribly wrong. But our SIL took us all over France. Each time to a different place: Normandy, (where he whispered in my ear, 'thank you for coming.') Alsace, Giverny, Carcassone, Lourdes, Provence and much more. Many trips, in the early years, were made w/two little French boys climbing all over me in the back seat. A couple times we went to Spain for lunch, and Monaco where our son drove the race course that had been set up for the big race in a few days, things like that. So mostly, it was France and we did take a cruise to Alaska & the Upper Mississippi, a bus tour of the Heartland visiting a pig farm, etc, but I still think he was always a bit uncomfortable. When our oldest g'son was 10, he flew from Paris to Washington DC by himself & we met him & toured the Capital and then to NY where we did everything, including the Twin Towers & now he's 23 & mentions how glad he was to have been there before 9-11. Now I could travel w/someone here or there, but I stay home for the most part. There are the memories and it's fun when you see something on TV that you've been to, but mostly France. There isn't any trip that I regret.