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Hi. I'm Kara. Never far away is my furry shadow, Kona.
By day, I'm a higher education consultant. I specialize in helping higher education employees be more innovative and engage with new forms of teaching, learning, and working. I also create content online about personal growth, productivity, and technology, faith, and my well lived life.
I'm honored that you've taken a few minutes to stop by my little home on the Internet. While you're here, subscribe to my newsletter, learn about my coaching services and classes, or participate in one of my free events. And you can always scroll on down and read about what I'm up to.
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Meet Your Hosts
Spoiler Alert: There are LOTS of tulips featured on this trip. Hi all. It's time to kick off another set of blog posts for an adventure - this time it's two weeks through Europe - including London, The Netherlands, and Belgium with a combination of touring on our own and our first ever river cruise and Adventures by Disney trip! I thought I’d take a moment to refresh our “Meet Your Hosts” post because, well a lot has changed. We are Kara and Gayle. Gayle also happens to be a
Kara Monroe
Apr 20, 20252 min read
Origin Story
Gayle: Let’s take the “Way Back Machine” to… 2017? This is the first time I remember Kara ever mentioning interest in a river cruise. Her rationale was to see “inner Europe”, where an ocean cruise couldn’t take us. In researching, I discovered most river cruisers are in their 60s+ and many are retired. Well, we definitely weren’t that! So the trip we were discussing back then ended up being our first Europe Disney Cruise, which was to the Med . Over time we researched a numbe
Gayle Hartleroad
Apr 19, 20252 min read
The Journey To The Journey
A photo from our time a Keukenhof Gardens near the end of the trip Gayle here! If you read the previous “Origin Story” you know the basis for this adventure was booked more than a year in advance. Not only do I/we regularly book this far in advance, but also this is needed when you have limited offering, must-haves for an international trip! That means A LOT of things can and did happen along the way. So here’s a run-down of all that transpired (& a great example of how a Tra
Gayle Hartleroad
Apr 18, 20253 min read
Let's Go To London
We're off on our journey! Sunday, April 6, 2025 Hi all. It’s Kara getting us started off today. After the change in travel plans that Gayle discussed in The Journey to the Journey, she added a surprise for this trip - an upgrade to business class on the Indy>Chicago and Chicago>London legs of the trip. We both prefer to fly Business Class or at least Premium Economy on all international trips. We were booked premium economy for both international legs, but Gayle snuck in and
Kara Monroe
Apr 17, 20253 min read
Welcome to London
Fresh off the plane and ready to hit the town! Monday April 7, 2025 Arrival at Heathrow It's Kara back to start us off again today - fitting since I woke up first. I slept lightly on the plane, but enough that I felt pretty rested. I woke up just as one of the crew was coming around with hot towels. He took my breakfast order. Just as I got my seat put back up, he arrived with my coffee, orange juice and breakfast tray. I opted for the sous vide egg bites with the roasted tom
Kara Monroe
Apr 16, 20258 min read
Day 3 - Westminster Abbey and a Spin Your Own Chocolate and Books Tour
Greetings from Big Ben Gayle: In trying to get settled into a new space last night, it was roughly 10pm by the time we were lights out. It was pushing 11pm for me to get to sleep. After a red eye flight and many hours around the city, it was no surprise we slept until approximately 8:30am - with no guilt! FYI, yes we can hear the Eurostar coming and going, as this is an old hotel. However, they are infrequent and sound more like calm planes. As someone who grew up next to an
Gayle Hartleroad
Apr 15, 20256 min read
Day 4 - Harry Potter Studios Deluxe Tour
Making notes in the ledgers in Gringots Bank Hi all. Kara starting off today. Today actually started way back in 2017. Gayle brought a group of students on study abroad to London. The Harry Potter Studio Tour had opened outside of London and she and some of her students went. To say I was a little jealous was an understatement. I listen to the Harry Potter books (narrated by the incredible Jim Dale) all the time. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban got me through my doct
Kara Monroe
Apr 14, 202511 min read
Day 5 - Hamilton on the West End
Us at the Victoria Palace Theatre before Hamilton started. Gayle: After having re-set the “bedding barrier” and a FULL day with Harry Potter, we each gloriously slept for 9-10 hrs! There’s no guilt in that, as this trip is a marathon, not a sprint. Kara had originally booked us for a Harry Potter tour today. It was to show us sites used in the filming of the movies, like Millennium Bridge, and personal locations, like Daniel Radcliff’s school. While it would use the Tube, in
Gayle Hartleroad
Apr 13, 20255 min read
Day 6 - A Tale of Two Trains
Ready to leave London the Eurostar It’s Kara starting off today. We needed to be downstairs at the train station by 7:30am this morning so we were awake quite early. Sadly, we each slept very badly last night so, it was an especially rough start to the day to have to be up and moving so quickly. The beautiful lobby of the St. Pancras Renaissance. We went down to the lobby around 7:20am. While Gayle filled up our water bottles from the Club, I got us checked out. We then heade
Kara Monroe
Apr 11, 202510 min read
Day 7 - Exploring Amsterdam
It’s Kara starting out again today. One of the ways we like to learn about a city is through its food. Fun fact, we’ve had at least two other food tours booked together, and we’ve had to cancel both of them due to delays and other issues. So, gratefully, we got up this morning to gorgeous warm weather with full sunshine and went to meet our tour guide, Roman, at 10am. (Fun Fact: It rains 266 days out of the year here, so the fact we got two beautiful days back to back is a l
Kara Monroe
Apr 10, 20257 min read
Day 8 - Let The Adventure Begin
On board the AmaLucia Hi everyone. Kara starting off again today. We had, as our British friends would say, a good lay-in this morning and allowed ourselves to sleep in until about 8:30am this morning. The only thing on our agenda today was to check out of the hotel, have a nice brunch or lunch, and head to the ship. More on how that could have gone differently a bit later. Breakfast We showered, dressed, and finished packing and took our bags down to the bell stand by 11am.
Kara Monroe
Apr 9, 20257 min read
Day 9 - It's Tulip (Picking) Time
Besties in a field of tulips Hi all. Kara starting out again today. Our river cruise is starting out with what we've learned is an unusual occurrence! We have two mornings in a row that are sailing mornings. As such, we had a nice leisurely morning. Wind turbines like those we see in Indiana are even in the water here in the Netherlands. We learned that the tops of them rotate to catch the wind. I woke up at 6am and went down to the coffee machine in the lounge to get my fir
Kara Monroe
Apr 8, 20257 min read
Day 10 - Go With The Flow
Disney had no idea how much meaning "Going with the flow" would take on today! ADVENTURE!!! Hi all. Kara again. Let’s just say that the theme of today’s post is going to be adventure all the way through. Remember that 82 page travel guide I made for us. We threw it out the window today! Before I start today, let’s rewind back to Sunday night after dinner. We met with Adventure Guide Michaela to go over the plan for the week. We learned then we were going to be docking in Brui
Kara Monroe
Apr 7, 20255 min read
Day 11 - Wed., April 16, 2025 - Nibbling Through Ghent
That's right Donald!! Today was our first early morning of the cruise. With alarms set at 7, we got up, I (Kara) went and got coffee and our colored tour cards for the day, and we got ready and headed to the lounge for our first tour which departed the ship at 8:15am. Today’s plan was to do two different walking tours of Ghent. The first is the Fairytale City of Ghent Walking Tour with Canal Cruise . The second is the Nibbling through Ghent tour . Unlike most days, today’s b
Kara Monroe
Apr 6, 202510 min read
Day 12 - Thurs., April 17, 2025 - An Appetite for Antwerp
Entering the Groot-Bijgarden Castle. Good morning Adventurers. Kara here again to get us started today. I’m going to actually start today’s post with a little hiccup from last night . Each evening at about 6:30pm we gather together in the lounge for some complimentary cocktails (including both an alcoholic option and a mocktail option), some group celebrations led by our Adventure Guides, and a run down of the next day’s activities, also led by our Adventure Guides. If there
Kara Monroe
Apr 5, 202510 min read
Day 13 - Fri., April 18, 2025 - Architecture-New & Old (Rotterdam & Kinderdijk)
Pin of the day Hi all, Kara again. If you recall at the beginning of the cruise, we learned that rather than docking in Delft, we would be docking in Rotterdam. This was the best plan that could have happened for us. We had planned to do on our own time in Delft - which quite honestly might not have even happened as we weren’t all that excited about Delft. However, we were thrilled to get the opportunity to explore Rotterdam on our own. We decided not to set an alarm, knowin
Kara Monroe
Apr 4, 20254 min read
Day 14 - Keukenhof Gardens
Hi friends. This is future Kara writing to you from July 2025 - exactly three months to the day from when we returned from this trip. Posting these blog posts has been a labor of love that has taken longer than either of us would like. And, now, as we have reached the end of the trip, we've realized that we didn't write anything for this day or our trip home (which thankfully was mostly non-eventful with just the usual horrific wait to get through customs in Chicago and catch
Kara Monroe
Apr 3, 20253 min read
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