Brutal!

That is how I am describing this short 2 week visit to the states.

Why?

We knew it would be a tough trip due to the quickness of it, the jet lag that a person feels and the amount of travel we would be doing during that time.

Let me tell you it started slowly.

We flew out August 1 and we were supposed to arrive back in the states that evening.

However, we sat first in the airport in Warsaw for about half an hour and then once we got in the plane, it was a good hour or hour and a half later before we finally left.

Needless to say we missed our connection in Paris. Air France did give us some food vouchers and a hotel - though it was not a Holiday Inn Express or other such hotel. It was more like “Grandma’s Tiny Extra Room Hotel”. They did give us a meal and we served us breakfast in the hotel. It was all sufficient, if not what we had hoped for in any way.

The next day we made it to Atlanta. Air France had not given us boarding passes for the last flight so we had to get them there. Customer service was struggling to get us on the flight, but I mentioned that it was my birthday and I had wanted to be in Florida, celebrating with my twin. The lady said, “Oh you should have led with that.” They upgraded us to First Class and moved us up to an earlier flight! Thank you, Delta. We really do appreciate it!

So we did end up arriving a day late in Florida, which kind of just left us a bit discombobulated as our time was so short.

But we arrived safe and sound, so we were very grateful!

So we landed in Tampa about 5 pm just in time to beat a thunderstorm, which would have parked our flight as they don’t land or take off in lightning. Driving home, my son, Jeremiah hit torrential rain and I was glad I was sitting in the back seat watching the Olympics with my granddaughters.

On Saturday the news was all abuzz with the coming storm, Debby. We knew it was slow moving but heading our way.

It hit my mom’s house about 1:35 pm on Sunday afternoon with some more torrential rains which lasted off and on for a day or day and a half. It was mostly finished by Monday morning, and I was glad we decided to not head up to SC til Wed. as the storm was very slow moving right through the area we were going to need to pass through. Hopefully we would be able to get there with no issues.

On Sunday evening my husband told me he really didn’t feel very well. I passed it off as jet lag, but then he just sat around a lot seemingly unable to do much of anything that my mom had on her list of things needing to be done on Monday and Tueday. On Wednesday morning we left for my daughter’s graduation in Clemson, SC. That’s another 9+ hours on the road.

On the trip up on Wednesday I began to feel “not so great”. I had driven some and my husband drove some, but the longer day went, the less well I felt. We did NOT see any flooding from Debby, but in the area of the big bend of Florida I did notice some damage with downed trees - as I as driving right about then.

By the time we got to Pendleton, SC, I really just wanted to go to bed. I had purchased some Extra Strength Tylenol Extreme cold/flu and that seemed to help my husband as we drove. We greeted our daughter and got some dinner - which I had looked forward to - but in the end, I just went to bed shortly after a piece of pizza.

The next day was graduation. Our older daughter, Abby, and her husband, Zachary, arrived from VA and then our youngest son, Daniel, and his wife, Jessica, arrived from near Columbia, SC. Our crew was in!

I took more meds and we headed to the ceremony at about 1:30 pm. The ceremony was at 3 but the doors opened at 2 pm.

We had originally planned to go to Columbia, SC the next day and spend time with our son and his wife, Daniel and Jess, but decided to cut that short and just head back to Florida on Friday, the 9th of August.

So we did. My husband’s birthday is August 10 and I think neither of us wanted to be on the road for that date - We just wanted to be at “home” or at least close enough.

Thankfully we arrived safe and sound on the 9th back to Dade City, FL, and by now my husband was feeling much improved. When we came back, we realized that my mom wasn’t feeling well as she had left some of her breakfast meal on the counter with her unwashed dishes from breakfast. She NEVER does that.

We hurried to her suite and checked on her. Thankfully she was feeling well enough to talk with us but sure enough, she also hadn’t felt very well while we were gone.

Saturday I went out and got some COVID tests just out of curiosity as someone had mentioned that it was going around again. We were not sick when we left Poland —not at all— but we could have run into something on extra day around Paris or people sitting near us on the plane.

We all came back positive for COVID. I wasn’t surprised about mom and me but I thought that my husband was over whatever he had.

To summarize the last few days - I struggled to feel better. I knew that I just needed to rest and try to stay out of the way as much as possible. Mike felt better and better. Mom actually felt a little stronger (she’s almost 92, so we were being very aware of her status).

By about Tuesday I wasn’t feeling sick anymore, but had a lingering cough - sort of like a loose cough.

(I was nowhere near as sick in 2024 as I was in 2020 when I had COVID the first time - that time I was very, very sick for a good 10 days with a high fever. This really did just feel like a flu — which I do not often get —maybe once a year or so.)

And so we came back to Poland on Thursday afternoon.

When we sat on the plane leaving Tampa for Detroit and we were 45 minutes late leaving Tampa, I thought to myself, “We couldn’t possibly have this happen again, could we? Will we be so late getting into Detroit that we miss the flight to Amsterdam?”

But no, we did not miss our flight to Amsterdam and I am so grateful! yes, we were late, but the connection was good and we had no problems catching the flight.

We made it back to Poland with all our luggage and with no missed flights. The flights were all FULL but we had a seat.

So there’s that.

But now I’m trying to recover. The older you are the harder jet lag is to get over.

The ‘feeling’ behind jet lag is about like when you miss a lot of sleep due to a cold or the flu or something and you kind of are in ‘lala land’. That’s how I’m feeling. Hopefully it will get over in a week and each day I will feel more energetic and more ‘here’.

And now you know.

Was it worth it to see our daughter march with her cap and gown? (I do have more pictures to show you when I can just feature her - I figure a PhD is worth being featured in a post!)

Yes, most definitely! It really is a once in a lifetime thing!

It was also wonderful to see all of our other children other than Tim/Claire who are currently in Poland - that was such a highlight.

But yes, the trip was brutal. All those people who figured it was a nice, leisurely vacation trip…I won’t bother to correct them—I just smile and nod.

Thanks for being patient with me on the blog. I had most of the posts done ahead of time but now I’ll get back to ‘real time’.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Oh - Rachael has some interesting airplane and suitcase/travel fabric - check them out!