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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
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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