All Together

When you live on a different continent from your adult children, its a bit challenging to get everyone together. This is especially true we all live in different cities!

But we were determined to make it happen. We took a two week trip to Portugal! Maggie joined us for the entire time and Anna was able to come for the second week.

Maggie loves to hike so we hit four days of “The Fisherman Trail” along the Algarve Coast on the southern tip of a country we had not yet stamped in our passports.  I’m not quite as fit as Scott and Maggie but the beautiful coastline, the perfect hiking weather and the fact that a taxi moved our suitcases between hotels allowed me to enjoy much of the 50-mile hike.  We scooted along the ridge of the coast. Up on high cliffs, down to small beach alcoves and then scrambled up the other side to a new ridge and new beach farther down the trail.

I took one day off (due to "past their prime" hiking shoes and really sore feet) and hiked only part of the last day because Scott had to rush ahead to our next location for a ZOOM court hearing and I knew I would slow them down.  Thankfully there are taxis in every small town and I had no problem relishing a leisurely lunch at a small beachfront café and then catching a ride to our next stopover hotel.

If you like hiking a BEAUTIFUL, pretty unspoiled part of the world, this is the place for you.  We only saw one American on the entire hike.  It was mostly Germans and a smattering of other Europeans.  The total trail is a 11 – 14 day trip but Scott and Maggie ran into a Ultra Marathoner who did it with his wife in 8 days.  I felt better that she too skipped one day to let her husband run ahead.

We then trained back to Lisbon, met Anna and enjoyed an entire week with her poking around the city beforee heading back to the coast for a couple of days of sunshine and R & R.  The weather at the end of our trip with lovely, 75-80 degrees which made for an amazing chance to sit by the pool, walk the beach while both Scott and Maggie chose to do more hiking.  Anna and I had no issue with letting them.  We hit the local English book store and enjoyed the beach and the pool.

We ate great food.  WALKED AND WALKED AND WALKED.  Enjoyed a couple of lovely Airbnb’s, learned a great deal about Portuguese history, and played some Bananagrams when we weren't totally exhausted. Most of all we were grateful to be together.  We left Lisbon within a few hours of each other and hope that we will be together again over Christmas. 

I know my girls are now adults but that doesn’t mean that I miss them any less. Scott and I were very grateful that Maggie and Anna were willing to take the time to join us!

We're now back in Uganda preparing for our summer interns.