2022 like 2019

 In 2019, we went on a lot of small trips. 

Spring Break was spent in Atlanta visiting my cousins and exploring the city, which we had driven through a million times but never stayed in for anything more than a night while en route to or from Florida.

That summer, we visited Cape San Blas, a small peninsula in Florida.

That fall, we went to Michigan City, Indiana and took the train to Chicago.

This was all for the good because COVID made us very eager to go nowhere outside our state. We went to Land Between the Lakes, Cumberland Falls, and Red River Gorge until we had all been vaccinated when I felt it was probably a little more safe to go beyond the borders.

Since December 18, 2021, I've traveled quite a bit and failed to write about any of it. Until now.

The first trip was when the five of us went to Las Vegas, Nevada and Joshua, Tree, California. It was a pretty darn wonderful trip even though we were still having to mask inside (or should I say, we chose to mask inside even though lots of other people didn't). 

We spent a full day in Joshua Tree National Park and then stopped at Amboy Crater in the middle of the Mojave Desert on our way back to Las Vegas. In Vegas, we went to Meow Wolf and walked all over the strip and then drove to Hoover Dam. It was a trip that sort of wore us out but that I so enjoyed because I was seeing new terrain. It was some 1,856 miles there and back. 

The Mojave Desert at sunset as we were driving from Las Vegas to Joshua Tree.

Found a hole in a boulder where water had frozen overnight. 

Outdoor sculpture at Meow Wolf in Las Vegas. 

At the Hoover Dam

In early April, N and I went to Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, a trip we had been planning and saving for since October 2020, when we thought innocently to ourselves, "This pandemic should be over by April 2022." 

The trip was amazing and exhausting and had I had the energy after puking some 12+ times on the ferry from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz, I would have thrown myself overboard and just drowned because motion sickness on the Pacific is no fucking joke. (I likely puked over 20 times in a 2-hour period but I decided suicide would be a good idea sometime after my 10th puke. I say this not to make suicide funny but to note that when people feel miserable, a wish to just die and get it over with is not irrational but a better option out of all bad options.)

When I finally staggered off the boat and could barely stand, the closest place to lie down was here. I spent the rest of that day in bed.

Pier at Santa Cruz, the Galapagos with another creature 

who may or may not have also been extremely seasick. One of the members of 

the tour took this pick which was only hilarious many days later. 

This was, however, the worst of my trip. Everything else was amazing and awesome, and I was so privileged to see it. It was my first but I hope not my last trip to South America and was some 3,000 miles one way. Plus, it was my girl's first international trip, and I love that she was able to do it. 

A view of Quito from Virgin of El Panecillo. 

A mural in Otavalo, Ecuador

The beach on San Cristobal, the Galapagos

The flight, somewhere over Nicaragua.

Since we've spent a lot of money on those two trips, we decided we needed to keep a summer trip short and therefore, cheaper. 

I'm not a fan of stuff but I value experience and time, and over the years, I've tried to combine both by inviting my parents and/or my MIL on our trips. Due to my dad's health problems in 2020, we asked mom and dad to come on a weekend trip with us to Tennessee in early May since it wasn't as long of a drive for them. I had learned about Pickett State Park and wanted to see it because it is a international dark sky park. It was around 170 miles away. 

As with the massive puke fest in the Galapagos, often you don't plan what happens, and we didn't plan for it to rain the entire weekend except for like 40 minutes on Friday and then another 40 minutes on Saturday of this extended weekend. We got out during those brief windows of time to explore. So much for seeing the dark sky when there was nothing but heavy rainclouds. 

Pickett State Park, Tennessee during one of those 40 minute non-rain windows. 

Big South Fork lookout trail during one of those 40 minute non-rain windows. 

The view from this lookout. 

The lovely cabin we stayed at. 

I also wanted to squeeze in another shortish trip (340 miles) and decided Kelleys Island would take us to water, which we like, and cooler temperatures, which we also like. After visiting Michigan several years ago, I sort of got it in my head to see all the Great Lakes. This took another off our list; only one left (Ontario). 

We spent 4 full days exploring Kelleys Island and seeing the African Safari zoo in Port Clinton, Ohio and Marblehead lighthouse. It felt like the beach without the heat or the salt or the jellyfish. 

Me on a ferry to Kelleys Island and not puking. It is possible. 

Herndon Gallery within walking distance of the house we rented.

Glacial grooves on Kelleys Island. 

African Safari drive where you can feed the animals who 

will stick their big heads in your car and slobber on the doors. 

We ate A LOT of ice cream at Papa T's on Kelleys Island. 

And so now, we are home and will stay home for a good long while to save up and hopefully plan for other adventures down the road to far off places. 

I know my love of travel is an addiction of sorts because I do feel this physical and mental urge to get out of my norm and get away from what I see all the time. I get a release of good-feeling hormones just looking up places I might like to go at some point, and that feeling is compounded by A LOT when I actually get to the someplace new I wanted to see. I tell myself that it is probably a better addiction than illegal drugs and sex with strangers. 

But there are costs to it. It costs time and money. It is tiring. And not everyone in our family loves travel the way I do so it forces me to not see everything I'd like to see and them to see more than what they care to see. 

These are very lowercase privilege problems. I'm thankful that I get to see as much as I've been able to see.