2020 Holiday Letter
Well, 2020 was a unique year, wasn’t it? Things didn’t exactly go as planned—for any of us. The beginning of 2021 hasn’t been any different for us and ours, in that regard. Here we are, a third of the way into the new year. How did that happen?
When 2020 began, we had just touched down in Puerto Rico. We were nearing the end of our month-long Caribbean region adventure (all flights free, courtesy of our Southwest Companion Pass), which I wrote about in my last holiday letter.
We spent our first few days in PR in the Santurce Art District of the capital, San Juan, exploring the historic forts and walking the parks and neighborhoods. I even snorkeled at one of the beaches in town and swam with a sea turtle for a little while!
Some photos:
Some images from Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Old San Juan.
And a few more photos from the downtown/Old San Juan area:
Though they had come a long way, we could see PR was still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017.
As we planned where to go next, Keith, ever the science nerd, picked Arecibo—until a few years ago, the world’s largest single-aperture telescope. I picked Fajardo, because it was close to some smaller islands where we might kayak in a bioluminescent bay and also do some diving.
On January 5, we rented a car and headed for Arecibo first, touring the entire impressive facility. The telescope consists of a huge parabolic dish, 1,000 feet wide, set in a natural sinkhole. Massive cables strung from three giant concrete towers around the dish suspended a huge receiver and several transmitters nearly 500 feet over the dish. The telescope gathered data on planets, asteroids, comets, and other space objects and phenomena. It brought back memories of touring the telescopes in Antarctica—the South Pole Telescope and the SPUD Telescope.
Here are some photos of Arecibo:
In the afternoon, we drove to the other side of the island and checked into our Airbnb in Fajardo.
January 6, apparently there had been an earthquake. Someone messaged me on Facebook to ask if I was okay. We hadn’t even felt it. We went out and enjoyed the trails and beaches around Fajardo.
January 7, we awoke but hadn’t gotten up yet. As we lazed in bed, the house began to shake. This earthquake, we definitely felt, though we were almost as far away as we could be from the epicenter and still be on the same island. Power went out all over the city—and most of Puerto Rico. We decided it would be a good day to go hiking. No electricity needed! Our Airbnb host had thoughtfully provided a couple of small coolers, so we packed a picnic lunch, crept through all the dead stoplights in town, and headed for the hills.
At El Yunque National Forest, we waited for the rangers to check all the roads and trails to ensure no dangerous earthquake damage. Little by little, the trails reopened and we set out to explore the beautiful forest. Aside from a tree that fell just a few feet from us on a spot we had just passed on a trail, it was a lovely but uneventful day.
The power was still out when we returned, and still the next morning when we left for the ferry to Vieques Island. We didn’t end up diving, and because of a full moon, we opted out of the bioluminescent kayaking tour also, because the luminescence is hard to see if it’s not perfectly dark. I had a good time snorkeling, though, and we also hiked up a trail where we saw lots of hermit crabs.
The power had returned to Fajardo by the time we got back, but was still out in many parts of the island, including the rental office in San Juan when we returned the car.
On January 9 we flew back to Kansas city, rented a car there, and checked into a hotel around midnight. The next day we would make a dash for our property, do a luggage swap, and race back to Kansas City ahead of a predicted winter storm.
We made it back to a hotel near the airport just as the winter weather turned severe, coating everything in a blanket of ice.
Glad we didn’t have to drive 90 miles in that ice storm before our morning flight!
We spent January 11 with Andrea and Jaime (Keith’s sister and brother-in-law) in Dallas, then flew to Morelia early on January 12. We were back in our beloved Pátzcuaro by mid-afternoon.
Happy dance!
After settling in and catching up with some friends, we started house hunting.
The plan: find an unfurnished house we can rent year-round and sub-rent it via Airbnb any time we aren’t around. Some friends of mine agreed to manage it for us in our absence. After much searching about, we found a 4-bedroom home in a good neighborhood only a few blocks from the historic center of town. Four bedrooms was bigger than we had planned on, but we loved the location and the landlady was willing to write subletting permissions into our contract, which we then had a lawyer friend review before we signed.
On February first, we signed a one-year lease and began shopping for furniture and appliances. We found a furniture maker in Cuanajo, one of the nearby indigenous villages, to make a lot of the items for our house: table and chairs, beds, nightstands, coffee table, desks. There are also many textile makers in Pátzcuaro, so I ordered some custom-made bedspreads and matching curtains from them. We bought locally-made lamps in Quiroga, one of the other lakeside towns. We traveled to Morelia to search for appliances, office chairs, and living room furniture.
Soon we had internet connected, and enough furniture and household items between what we had purchased and what we had brought from the States, we moved in. I joined the neighborhood gym and started working out and taking yoga classes. We began getting to know our neighbors.
In the midst of the whirlwind of setting the house up, we also did some sightseeing. Here was a little day trip out to Tzintzuntzan to see the old temples built by the indigenous people centuries ago:
Keith had signed up for a solar conference in Colorado at the end of February. The plan was for him to attend his conference, put some solar modules on the earthbag house, attend another conference in Missouri, then return to Mexico for a few more weeks, hopefully until Semana Santa when my whole mastermind group planned to gather at our place. Meanwhile, I would stay in Pátzcuaro and shop around for an orthodontist and start getting my teeth straightened. I planned to return to Mexico throughout the year for dental appointments, splitting my time between the two countries. You can see where this is going…
Keith attended the solar energy conference in Colorado and installed the modules on the house, but by the time the next conference was scheduled in March, COVID was in full swing. The conference was canceled and borders began to close. My mastermind decided to cancel our gathering, and I was torn about what to do next.
I’d found a good dentist, but hadn’t started the work on my teeth yet. Keith got a job lined up in Massachusetts, but there was a high probability it would get shut down because of the coronavirus. We had a paid-for place to live and low cost of living in Mexico. Things still felt normal. No recorded cases yet in our part of Mexico. In the northeastern US, in contrast, cases were skyrocketing. Should Keith come back down and we make do with my online income, or should I fly to Massachusetts and take the gamble that Keith wouldn’t lose his job? Either way, we didn’t want to be forced to live apart for an indefinite period of time when the borders closed.
We agonized over the decision and ultimately decided to take the chance on Keith’s job. I reserved my plane ticket, scrambled to finish getting the house set up for Airbnb, and two days later was on my way to Massachusetts on March 24—a month earlier than I had planned to go back to the States. The airports were eerily empty. Keith picked me up in Boston late at night and we returned to his hotel in Wareham. Massachusetts was a new state for me!
The next morning, we drove two hours west and moved into a furnished apartment in Agawam, Massachusetts. I fell into a bit of a slump. Back to gray weather and the occasional snowfall, no friends or family nearby, and everyone terrified because of coronavirus. I isolated myself for two weeks, seeing nobody except for Keith, since I had just been traveling. I decided to pull myself out of my funk and created a little sanity plan, which helped, and we started getting out into the country for hikes whenever Keith had a day off.
In mid-April, there was a bit of a transitional moment in Keith’s job which opened up an ideal time to fly back to Kansas and grab the Giant Slothmobile—our motorhome—and Sprite, our kitty. I bought plane tickets for the next day, and we took off. Less than 24 hours after landing in Kansas, we were on the long road back to Massachusetts.
What an adventure that road trip was! After years of never having a problem, we blew out tires in 4 of the first 6 states we traveled through. After the fourth tire blew, we decided to just have all the rest of the tires changed to prevent this happening again. It took a day longer than planned, but we made it back to Agawam late on a Monday night. I found an RV park in Southwick, Massachusetts, and we moved in a week later. What a good feeling to be back in our own home again, and in a beautiful RV park out in nature!
I had always imagined the northeast as overpopulated and urban. The amount of green space in that part of the country was a pleasant surprise. We had access to many great hiking, biking, and kayaking spots near our RV park, which was only 15 minutes from Keith’s job. Bear sightings in the park were common.
I began training for my next adventure race, which I had signed up for with my friends Karen and Amy in Michigan. We all had known each other since we were teens. Karen and I have remained close friends, but I lost contact with Amy for a few years as I went off to start my career and she went off to start her family. However, we’d reconnected the previous year when I was in Michigan, and we were all very excited to share an adventure together after many years.
I found several orienteering courses in nearby Connecticut and New Hampshire, also new states for me. I tagged Vermont also, on our way to New Hampshire. Here’s a permanent orienteering course in a park in Connecticut:
Fourth of July weekend—a holiday we normally spend with Keith’s family out at the lake—we backpacked a 16-mile section of the Appalachian Trail through Western Massachusetts. Some photos:
I’d been in touch with my family, and Grandma kept asking me when I would be coming to visit. I was hesitant to risk traveling and then infecting her with the coronavirus, but her voice had a pleading, urgent edge to it. I knew in my heart that virus or not, she would not be around much longer, and it would mean so much to her for me to visit. I would feel bad if she were to go before I could see her again.
In mid-July I flew out to Colorado to spend several precious days with Grandma and the rest of the family.
My mom and I also discussed the book we’ve been working on for years and decided the only way we were going to get it finished this year was if we could work on it together, in person, in a distraction-free environment. So we planned for me to return for an 8-day writer’s retreat at the end of August/beginning of September, reserving a house near a lake in Colorado, close enough to Grandma that we could get to her quickly if there were an emergency.
Shortly after my return from Colorado, on July 19, we moved our motorhome to an RV park close to Cape Cod—in Carver, Massachusetts. Our park had a large pond, bordered a state forest, and also had many cranberry bogs nearby. I continued training for the adventure race—paddling in the pond and hiking, running, and biking the miles of trails and logging roads in the forest.
My friend Kaycee introduced me to a fun new fitness challenge app, especially perfect for this year, called “My Virtual Mission.” Here’s my referral link if you want to check it out and get a discount. I started with the Ring of Kerry and highly recommend it.
In addition to the fun of the virtual challenge, I loved the real-world abundant nature and wildlife I saw on my daily workouts.
My phone rang late at night on July 24, three weeks before our adventure race. It was Karen. “Amy is dead.”
Healthy and fine one moment…gone the next, leaving behind 3 children and many distraught friends and family members, Amy was only 5 months older than me. Brain aneurysm. We were all shaken and heartbroken.
Karen and I didn’t have the heart to do the race without Amy, so we canceled our race plans and instead made plans to go on a camping trip and bring Amy’s kids along with us. A couple of weeks later, I loaded my Subaru with my bike and camping gear (including a fun new tent which attaches to the back of my Subaru Outback*) and set off for the long drive to Michigan.
I stopped overnight at Tomlinson Run State Park in West Virginia—another new state for me.
Karen and I and her kids and Amy’s kids all had a good weekend camping—as good as it could be under the circumstances. We biked, swam in the lake, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and paddled my inflatable kayak.
Meanwhile, back in Massachusetts, Keith was working on his newest big project: a solar generator. This huge 5-kilowatt battery could be charged with solar panels and would be powerful enough to run all the everyday stuff in the motorhome, even high-powered items such as the microwave, heaters, and air conditioners, for shorter periods of time. Here’s a post about it on Keith’s LinkedIn page.
I returned to Massachusetts for a couple of weeks, and just as my post-travel quarantine period ended, it was time to go to back to Colorado for our writer’s retreat.
I visited Grandma and the rest of the family for a day, then my mom and I took off for our retreat. The house we rented could not have been more perfect. Located in beautiful Palmer Lake, Colorado, we were only a few blocks from several good restaurants and miles of trails.
We began each morning with a good breakfast and about an hour of exercise on the trails, then got to work on the book. We put in a good 8-10 hours a day on the book, breaking for meals, many of which we got from the restaurants to avoid cooking and cleanup distractions. We set up a Scrabble board on the table, too, and made plays throughout the day as a nice mini-break from the book.
One morning as we walked around the lake, I looked at the wide, flat path and told my mom, “We have to get Grandma up here on our last day here. She would love this.”
Fortunately, my sister Rosy was able to bring Grandma up and I pushed her wheelchair along the lake. Together we enjoyed the sun, fresh air, and the ducks playing in the water. Grandma was beaming, and my heart swelled with gratitude at the special moment, realizing it might be my last time with her, and glad it was a happy time.
Here are some photos from the week at Palmer Lake:
Summer turned to fall. The cranberry bogs around our Carver, Massachusetts RV park were turning red with ripe berries. I kept up with the virtual challenges, logging miles from hikes, kayaking, and bike rides, while watching the fall colors slowly coming on. (By now, I was on to the “Alps to Ocean” New Zealand challenge. Also very fun, but Ring of Kerry was better.)
Also in September, I took my French learning to the next level. I’d been listening to podcasts and doing a few minutes of lessons via Duolingo each day and could understand quite a lot, but I still felt blocked when it came to actually producing (speaking) the language. Duolingo is a fun and free way to learn the basics of a language. (Here’s my invite link if you want to check it out.) However, while I was gaining vocabulary and grammar knowledge, I didn’t feel like it was preparing me for an actual conversation. So I joined a 10-week live language learning class called “French Flow School,” put on by Idahosa Ness, creator of The Mimic Method. I highly recommend checking out his material, especially if you want to learn to speak a language with less of a foreign accent.
The first weekend in October brought a special moment for our family: our niece’s wedding and meeting our first great-nephew. We flew out to Illinois for the occasion. We enjoyed the beautiful outdoor wedding ceremony and snapped a photo with the bride and groom.
In the first couple of weeks of October, it’s cranberry harvesting season. Cranberry farmers flood the bogs, causing the berries to float to the surface, where they collect them and process them for sale.
Mid-October is also when most of the RV parks close for the season. We decided to find a place to rent for the final few weeks of Keith’s job (we expected to be finished around Thanksgiving time), and finally put the Giant Slothmobile up for sale. We’d buy a newer motorhome next year.
After much house hunting, I found a few options 40-45 minutes from Keith’s job. I even listed our Pátzcuaro house on Home Exchange (if you have a home and like to travel, check out my referral link) and contacted some home exchangers in the area to see if they’d be interested in a trip to our Mexico house as the weather turned cold, and we’d stay in their house in exchange. Then we looked at an off-season summer cottage rental in a beautiful location out in the country, right on the beach, looking across the bay at Cape Cod, and only 20 minutes away from Keith’s work. It was a no-brainer. We decided to enjoy our final month in the Northeast on the beautiful shell-speckled, 1/4-mile private beach.
The day before our move, on October 10, my family called to tell me the sad news that Grandma was fast declining and might not live another day. I sent Grandma a short video of me and Sprite, hoping to make her smile. My mom said she liked it and asked to see it again. That night, I got the call I had been dreading. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I looked at pictures of Grandma, remembered our last walk together on the shores of the lake, and thought about all the special times we had shared over my lifetime. I miss her so much. She has always been there. It was hard to believe she was gone. It gave me comfort to know that she had departed this world surrounded by love and family. Even Uncle Glen had been able to be there, and held her in his arms as she breathed her last. I felt bad that I wasn’t there, too.
On October 11, the move occupied my hands even as Grandma remained on my mind. We drove the motorhome to the cottage and began emptying it out, preparing it for sale. The process of moving boxes of things reminded me once again how much more convenient it is to move in a motorhome, instead of house hunting, packing, and unpacking every few months as we used to do. A couple of nights after our move, I dreamed about Grandma.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. I feel bad that I was so far away,” I told her.
“That’s okay, honey, I understand,” Grandma said. “I know you love me, and I love you too.”
Then we went on to talk about all kinds of things, just like old times, and the more we talked, the younger and more energetic Grandma looked. The dream comforted me very much.
We greatly enjoyed our view of the sea at our beach cottage. It never looked the same. Some days it was dark and stormy. Other days, glassy and serene. Still other days, foggy and mysterious. Sometimes it looked pink. Sometimes it looked green or deep blue. Sometimes it looked striped! And Cape Cod sometimes looked so far away we could barely see it, and sometimes it looked close enough to hop into our kayaks and reach it in a few minutes.
Not only did the cottage face the sea, but around the back and to one side, we were surrounded by a marsh that changed with the tides, looking alternately like a lake at high tide, or a field at low tide. Some days were still warm enough to take the kayaks out and paddle in the bay. Several times, during high tide, I slipped my kayak into the water behind our cottage and paddled around the marsh, and if the sea was calm, sometimes went out into the bay and paddled up the shore and around the nearby islands.
In early November, we sold the Giant Slothmobile and added the money to our savings account for the next motorhome.
I boarded another flight and joined my family in Arizona to celebrate Grandma’s life in a small memorial service. I treasured the time with each family member there, especially my Uncle Glen, with whom I had some of the best conversations we’d had in a long time. He also commented on how much he had enjoyed our visit, and looked forward to more. I told him I hoped to join him and my parents on one of their future trips to Hawaii, or have them all down to our place in Mexico, and he agreed that would be wonderful. I was also ever-conscious of the fact that each visit with Grandpa could be the last, and tried to spend some quality time with him. How glad I was that despite COVID’s continued grip on the country, I had gone to spend this time with family.
Throughout the entire drama of life with the move, sale of the motorhome, continued work on the book, Grandma’s death, and the trip for her memorial service, I remained enrolled in French Flow School. I worked hard at it, and by about 8 weeks in I was able to carry on conversations in French at an intermediate level, achieving my 2020 goal of becoming conversant in French. I also signed up for private lessons with a few tutors on italki. (Actually speaking the language is very important for effective language learning, so I recommend checking out italki if you’re trying to learn a language. Here’s my referral link so you can get some free credits!) I’m not fluent and still make many mistakes, but I can carry on a conversation! I can hardly describe the thrill of adding a new language to my arsenal. Truly one of the highlights of the year!
The other thing I kept working on was the book, but around Thanksgiving time, as I looked over what still needed to be done, I felt disillusioned. I couldn’t see how we would be able to finish by the end of the year unless we did another focused in-person writer’s retreat. I hesitated to travel again. I’d already made 4 rather lengthy trips between July and November and hated to leave Keith for a fifth week.
I called my mom and tried to convince her to come my way this time. I knew she would enjoy our place in Massachusetts. She was very hesitant to fly, or to take any more time off work since she had already taken so much when Grandma died. I kept prodding her over the next few days, and finally she agreed to come! We scheduled writer’s retreat #2 and reserved her tickets for a couple of weeks later.
As I began preparing for my mom’s visit, we received the sad news that Arecibo, the telescope we had visited in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the year, collapsed.
RIP, Arecibo.
December 9-14, my mom flew out and we spent another several days focused on the book. We progressed so much faster when we were in the same time zone, same room, and could quickly resolve writing issues and tech issues. Then the sweet moment came, the last evening of her stay. She finished her part! All that was left for her was to polish the first scene, and now that her part was done, it would be much easier for me to work on my remaining scenes and dovetail them with hers. My goal of finishing the book before the end of 2020 suddenly seemed within reach again. I listed the scenes I had left to polish, and mapped out a plan of action with a projected finish date of Dec. 27. I worked hard, but kept getting hung up on a couple of the harder scenes. My mom and I also worked on perfecting the first scenes in the book. December 27 came and went.
And then, on December 30, I did it. I finished Seven Years Running! We finally have a manuscript that we feel is publishable. We couldn’t have done it without the help of our friend, fellow writer, beta reader and editor, Melody Highman of AlphaBetaReader.com. She helped us craft the scenes and words in a way that made our story pop, and, after many, many self-edits, finally produce something we truly feel is worthy of publication. I can’t even begin to describe how valuable this was.
I must also thank J. Thorn and his mastermind group. J was a tremendous help in getting us to think through the scenes of our book and craft each one in such a way that it will keep the reader interested in what happens next. The mastermind group helped us through many of the issues we struggled with as we worked on the book. (By the way, if you’re a writer, you should get plugged into J’s amazing community. He and the community are all super helpful with any questions related to the craft or business of writing, plus they have a great accountability group! Here’s my link* if you want to check them out and join.)
Oh, and so much for our projected move date of Thanksgiving. Thanks to continued COVID-related and other delays on Keith’s job, 2020 came to a close and we were still in the summer cottage…until mid-January, by the looks of things.
Looking back on the year, it was a mixed bag. COVID obviously changed everything for everyone, and psychologically, the year was challenging. I had lost a couple of friends and my beloved Grandma. I failed to meet several of my goals–some of which couldn’t be helped because of what was going on in the world and in my circle of loved ones. However, I met several goals, too!
- We found a house in Mexico and set it up for Airbnb.
- I tagged not one, but 6 new states (MA, CT, VT, NH, RI, WV)!
- We went on a backpacking trip (and lots of day hikes and bike rides).
- I got to spend quality time with family.
- I became conversant in French.
- We finished the book!!!
Now that our manuscript was done, I began making preparations for the next stage of the publication process.
I began drafting this holiday letter on January 9 (late, I know, but this has become my holiday letter tradition). I was on a roll! Then I received a call from my mom that brought everything to a halt. “Uncle Glen was found dead this morning.”
Reeling from shock, I sank into the nearest chair. “Oh, no!” He was still so young–only 60. “What happened?”
Several agonizing days later, we heard from the coroner’s office that they’d found an undiagnosed heart condition. You just never know when your time is up. It feels like there were still so many conversations and adventures to be had…so many things to be done. His passing was hard for the whole family, but especially my parents, who were very close to him. They had planned to retire together and become neighbors. And we still hadn’t yet finished grieving Grandma’s death, less than 3 months earlier.
Keith and I had planned to visit my Grandpa in Arizona, find our next motorhome, then put it in storage in Kansas for the rest of the winter and spend as much time as possible at our home in Mexico. However, in light of the events, we decided to get our motorhome and simply stay in Arizona for awhile, getting Grandpa set up with some extra help, which is what Uncle Glen had planned to do.
We packed up and left Massachusetts in mid-January. I hopped across the country from Massachusetts to Kansas to drop off our things, Colorado to spend time with my parents, then Arizona to be with Grandpa. Keith caught up with me here.
After a few weeks of shopping around online and in person, Keith and I have found our next home on wheels. We haven’t named her yet, but we know she won’t be another “Slothmobile.” This motorhome will handle hills like a champ.
We are parked right behind Grandpa’s house in Arizona. And you know, Arizona isn’t a bad place to be in February and March! It’s not our beloved Mexico, but we’re grateful for the sun and warmth, and I’m grateful for the time with Grandpa.
Slowly, I’m getting back into a routine, and hope to resume the work on the publication of the book very soon. Stay tuned for news on that front!
I’m sure the last year+ has come with its own set of highs and lows for you, too. I hope it hasn’t been too difficult and that the path ahead is bright. Even as we still struggle through our recent losses, I am optimistic about the rest of 2021. We’re going to be okay. In spite of everything, we have a lot to be grateful for.
“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” – Melody Beattie
May the rest of 2021 be filled with happiness, prosperity, and gratitude for you and yours.
Much love,
Lily, Keith, and Sprite
*Affiliate link. If you make a purchase on the site after clicking this link, I will make a small referral fee, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support of my work!
Enter your name and email to receive my newsletter and stay up to date!
We hate spam as much as you. Your email is safe with us.