Dream In Plain Sight

PCH Road Trip 2020 › Seattle, WA Part 1 · August 2020 Our 30th Anniversary Road Trip: Chasing the Pacific Coast Highway A milestone anniversary, a pandemic pivot, and the ocean we'd never seen. In 2020, my husband and I finally made one of our biggest dreams a reality — a real, honest-to-goodness big trip to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We'd been tossing around the idea of a cruise for a while, but as we all know, 2020 had other plans. By summer, cruises had come to a screeching halt and we found ourselves back at the drawing board. That's when my husband suggested something that honestly sounded even better: a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway . Neither of us had ever seen the ocean. Thirty years of marriage, and we had never seen the ocean. This was the trip. I love to plan, so I spent a few months mapping out every detail of a week-long adventure. In August, we flew into Seattle, Washington to kick things off. ...

S aving money is a passion of mine, and one of the best surprises I've stumbled onto is this: some senior discounts start at age 55 — not 62 or 65. I found that out the hard way. I was checking out at a Goodwill thrift store when the cashier asked if I qualified for the senior discount. I was 49 at the time, so my first reaction was to be offended! However, I asked what age the discount started — and he said 55. Suddenly I didn't feel so bad. I was closer than I thought. Bottom line: Don't assume senior discounts are only for people in their 60s or 70s. Ask at every store you frequent — you might be closer to qualifying than you think. Here are some places that offer discounts starting at age 55: Goodwill — senior discounts of 10-25% available at participating locations, usually on a specific day of the week. Check your local store for details.  Salvation Army — also offers senior pricing at many stores of 10-25% available at participating locations, usually on a sp...

T o me, dreaming in plain sight means to dream — but realistically. Not the kind of dreaming that floats away into fantasy, but the kind you can actually reach out and touch. Over 58 years of living, I've collected quite a few of those dreams. Some stuck. Some didn't. And looking back, every single one of them led me exactly here. Travel has always been woven through my dreams, and in recent years my husband and I have finally been starting it. In 2020, we drove the Pacific Coast Highway from Seattle to San Francisco — a perfect way to mark 30 years of marriage. In 2021, we visited our oldest son on the East Coast, squeezing in New York City, Boston, and Cape Cod. A rejuvenating week in Myrtle Beach followed in 2023, and in 2025 we took our first cruise to the southern Caribbean. Each of those trips deserves its own story, and I plan to write them. In between the big trips, we found our rhythm camping on the North Shore of Lake Superior with our two youngest sons — one of our f...