Am killing time in the Dallas airport before we head out on our 6 am flight back to PHX. Some thoughts on our college visit from yesterday:
student life director did a presentation to parents while students attended a student panel without parents. Director said that Austin College is NOT a place that your student is going to get lost in the crowd. Music to my ears, honestly, because that’s been a concern of ours.
lunch in dining hall was good. D24 likes the food there.
D24 said she likes the personalization and the small class sizes
tour guide was great, is an art major, educstion minor, has a music scholarship because she wanted to continue with band “just for fun.” D24 liked her.
confirmed there’s no online classes here.
D24 said she really likes the area, could see herself being really happy there.
D24 attended a History of Comic Books class, which is in the art history department. She said it was really interesting.
college president said the size of Sherman is going to double in the next few years.
on Sunday, we went to the movies and drove around town. The hospital where all the pre-health kids do their shadowing and internships is a good size, bigger than the hospital near Centre College.
starting fall 2026, they’re going to have an ABET certified engineering major.
starting this fall, cost of textbooks is included in tuition.
D24 is really proud of how she did on her audition.
Sunday we had late lunch/early dinner at Old Iron Post in downtown Sherman. Food was very reasonably priced. Cool interior. Fun hangout spot. Very popular on Fri and Sat nights. D24 liked it.
there’s a Kroger grocery store apparently w/in walking distance of campus
Albertsons will deliver prescriptions to campus.
great presentation by an AC senior. He just got accepted to his top pick grad school for healthcare administration, talked about how he attended an AC alumni event on campus and got introduced to a chief executive of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and how helpful that was in doing an internship there in healthcare admin.
We loved it there! I wish my son wasn’t adverse to the travel distance and plane ride aspect. We loved the town, the people, and the students are so friendly and welcoming. Great college!
So are we! We decided to go ahead and do something once school starts again in the fall and everyone is out of the house. And it has been keeping me busy.
We’re doing a family/DD2024-graduation trip to Mexico (sending big brother off to his study abroad Mexico City internship) in June, but now I’m brainstorming our empty-nester trip for the Fall.
Travel planning is one of my (perhaps too many) passions! We should totally distract ourselves with that conversation.
So, do you have any general preferences for locations, activities, and so on? Fall is a great season for a lot of places, at least in the Northern Hemisphere (have to watch out for rainy seasons in the Southern). We have had great fall trips everywhere from Canada to the American West to the Canary Islands to China to the Eastern Med and Black Sea (little dicey these days) to all over Europe . . . .
I am always planning at least two trips … right now I’m building out both ten days in Turkey or ten days south of France. May not end up doing either, but the activity of searching keeps me occupied and gives me something to look forward to once the meat is empty. “Trip advisor” website gets a lot of time in my house.
if you’re interested in fall foliage, this map might be helpful to line up a timeframe with peak foliage season for the area. It’s a 2023 foliage map, but still could be useful for 2024 planning.
I am wondering if I am being over protective by not planning a vacation immediately after we become empty nesters? What if S needs something/wants to see us? He will be nearby so weekend visits are possible.
Please talk me out of these thoughts
Back in the 80s, my parents got a flat tire on the NJ Turnpike. It was a dark, stormy night, absolutely pouring rain. After some time passed without any tow trucks magically appearing, my dad got out to deal with changing the tire.
A moment later a car pulled over behind them, and out jumps: Richard Chamberlain! Who proceeds to help my dad change the tire in the pouring rain.
Empty nest trip: we’re heading to San Sebastián, eating/drinking like fools along the northern coast, then driving up to Bordeaux to repeat the process, including oysters in the dunes of Arcachon.
That’s an awesome story! I loved Richard Chamberlain back in the day - the Thorn Birds was another favorite mini-series (totally dating myself). Your empty-nester trip sounds amazing - Bordeaux is lovely and the wine is great (hope you have planned a stop in St. Emilion)! I’m still trying to plan a family trip for June to celebrate S24’s graduation - thinking of France & Germany (we did Italy for S22).
I know having a trip right after college drop off was the best thing for me and my husband. Great time to reconnect without kids, get out of our at home routine and a distraction from missing and wondering about our kids (twins) every minute. Had fun sending each of them a funny postcard (their 1st piece of college mail that took both of them at least a month to go get!) and texted occasional photos from our adventures too. You don’t have to go far, far away to have fun.
We just took a very long road trip and explored Glacier and Yellowstone with time in Sun Valley post the summer crowds. We now head out on a short getaway after they go back after the winter holiday break to reset again. Wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma one time (sent them wine) and Vermont to Maine another (maple syrup and a very ugly sweat shirt) - brrr. They are barely here during the summer due to internships in other cities - so the “reset” occurs in January.
I have the hardest time when they first leave and would mope around the house and obsess - but once my husband and i are out and about we think “what kids”
We were a big traveling family and I think they are a little envious that we are keeping it up without them - except not jealous about being in a car with us all day - that will happen with our international trips.
We felt the same way with our second. It never failed that, if we were out of town, she had some sort of crisis or emergency. We planned our early trips close to home, in regions with good cell phone reception.
@AustenNut thanks for the link. We are planning a fall foliage trip this year.
Have not decided yet! We’ve been, and agree it may be the most picture perfect spot in the area. I’m spending more energy at the moment trying to arrange unobtanium tastings…
With more and more schools announcing delayed commit dates - May 15, June 1 and the like - anyone want to speculate as to whether schools will add admitted student days in May?
We’re going on a cruise along the CA coast. My husband has a head injury so anything too intense won’t work right now … but the cruise will be relaxing and his doc gave us the ok. And neither of us has been to California, whereas we have been to the Caribbean before and Alaska is too much $$$ right now.
I love travel planning, even for trips that are nowhere in the near future. I have at least a dozen more in the hopper now that we will be child-free.
Sometimes S acts so mature and makes all these decisions independently and then this happened today:
S came in to my home office and waited there patiently for 5 mins while I was in an important meeting. He left after 5 mins. As soon as I was done I jumped out of my office, heart racing to see what was wrong since he never does this.
Turns out he wanted to ask if he could eat the remaining Eggplant Parm sub that was in the fridge.
For empty nest travel plans, my husband, who is a die hard Jaguars fan, has proposed traveling to every away football game next year. While I’d love to attend some of these, such as the one in London, I’m not sure attending EVERY game would produce complete marital bliss.
Since the staff for these events are current students and May is pressure time (finals/end of year projects), I don’t think many will add dates but I could be wrong.
- that will happen with our international trips.