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.

A delight (#11)

I took a very long pause on noticing delights; reality and the strange busyness of slowly going back to whatever passes for normal these days got in the way.

Today, though, was a bit delightful because N and I took a road trip that got me out of my house, out of my city, and also threw me all the way back to my teenage years.

We visited WKU which involved several (+)  hours in the car, some photos, a crap ton of walking, and lunch inside an actual restaurant since 1.) we are both fully vaccinated and 2.) it was 2 pm CST which means there were hardly any people inside. 

It was delightful to wander the campus which was beautiful with various pieces of public art on a day that I thought would rain but ended up being nice and breezy. 

It was delightful to feel like I was getting away (even though we came back the same day).

It was delightful (and maybe a little stressful) to talk to N about her ideas about what she wants and where she wants to go and what she might want to do with her life the next several years of her life. 

I was reminded of my own college visits and the decisions I made about where to go. Now me, 47-year-old me, happily medicated and well-versed in therapy me, would drop everything and go off to college away from my parents to explore and have fun. But the me of 30 years ago wouldn't and didn't. 

And N has to do what is right for her, the her she is now. Whatever that may be. 

We've still got one more college visit to do. 

The curmudgeon in me would normally hate to do this stuff but the travel-deprived-now-fully-vaccinated-me was ok with it. 

And that was a delight, too. 

Missing travel and Grumpy G

Our family will be going on a very low-key trip some two hours from our house this summer. It is all the logistics I can handle with only three of us fully COVID-vaccinated. 

As I was thinking about how much I really am looking forward to being away from home, it occurred to me how downright unpleasant many of our trips have been.

Not the entire trip, of course. 

But when you travel with kids, somebody is usually unhappy at least some of the time.

For us, our usually unhappy kid is the middle one. 

He is notorious for hating hiking (which D and I have always enjoyed). When I say hiking, I mean low-key hiking. We're not backpacking. We're not hiking tons of miles. 

Really, we just walk in the woods a little bit. 

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole to find as many photos as I could of G being grumpy on trips. One day these will be collected into a book for him. 

In this first pic, you would think we had drug the kids out all day at Disney. Nope. We have long been the kind of parents that religiously made our kids nap even when it interfered with whatever good time we were having. This was early in the day. G just wasn't having it. 

Here we were during a stop at a botanical garden on the way to somewhere. The evil-looking kid in the center is G. He seems unhappy. 

Mostly G is known for his "lying down in disgust" pose. 

He's done it in Michigan. 

And Kentucky. 

And Colorado.

And at Kennesaw National Battleground in Georgia. 

And those aren't the only such photos I have. 

I'm pretty sure we might get a new one on this summer's excursion. 

O, the places I'm not going this spring break

I'm engaging in quite a bit of my own CBT this week as I see social media posts from people who are traveling.

On the one hand, even though I'm fully vaccinated, it gives me a severe case of the heebie-jeebies to see people out and about engaging in life. And I have to remind myself that the pictures they post are of their own families together outside. They aren't packed into a subway car mask-less with hundreds of strangers. 

My parents, who are also fully vaccinated, got together for a meal with several other also fully vaccinated couples for dinner (not at a restaurant; in one of their homes). My initial reaction that never got past my lips was, "OMG. Are you crazy?" 

But then I went through the "They are fully vaccinated. The other people are fully vaccinated. They are fine" mantra and was ok. 

I'm doing a lot of the self-talk business lately. 

As mentioned, I do some CBT to manage the anxiety of seeing people out doing stuff.

And then I do some CBT to help me manage my feelings of meh and self-pity at seeing other people doing stuff because we're not doing stuff (even though I don't yet feel comfortable doing stuff especially if it involves being on an airplane).

My brain is putting itself in freaking knots.

So I give my brain this talk:

Me: "Brain, you've gone some really cool places, and you'll go to some really cool places again just not right now."

Brain: "Yeah, ok."

Me: "And you wouldn't enjoy traveling right now because the boys aren't vaccinated so you wouldn't want to fly. And you don't want to stay in a hotel. And you wouldn't feel comfortable going out to eat at restaurants."

Brain: "Yeah. You're right."

Me: "Not to mention that you've been able to save a crazy amount of money this year from not going places which means you may be able to do some stuff to the house that you've been wanting to do."

Brain: 'Yeah. That would be good."

Me: "And finally, Brain, you know as well as anyone that pics on social media are one moment in time. You've posted your own pics that make everything look amazing and wonderful even when five seconds later you felt like murdering your entire family."

Brain: "True, all."

Me: "So quit feeling mopey and boring. Life is 95% mopey and boring, and you know that. Cool it."

I'm finding that navigating all the rules and protocols and reservation systems is overwhelming me and taking all the fun out of doing stuff and that is just attempting to do stuff in my city. (We had a zoo attempt failure a couple weeks ago). 

I can't handle the idea of doing this from several states (or countries) away. YIKES!

This summer we're going two hours away and that will be good enough. 

I am having to remind myself a lot (more CBT) that it took me months to get used to pandemic life and it will take as long if not longer to readjust to whatever is going to look like normal. 

A delight (#9)

I'm not a "stuff" person, but I'm definitely a "spend money on travel" person. 

That travel has been far (Greece, Italy, Iceland) and close (Cumberland Falls and Land Between the Lakes). 

I keep several large scrapbooks of the places we have traveled since becoming a family of more than 2, and they bring me incomparable delight. 

Last night, I spent time scrapbooking our within-state trips in 2020. 

I didn't feel comfortable last year traveling outside the state, nor do I feel comfortable doing that now. Our small trip scheduled for this coming summer is to a spot two hours away from home. We have invited my parents, my MIL, and my niece (which, if all are able to come, will be the same makeup as our trip in June 2020). 

Looking back on these trips brings me the delight of seeing my loved ones spending time together without masks and concerns for our safety. 

(Empire Bluffs Trail, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan)

We have been supremely lucky to have traveled several times with my brother's family and our parents--to Michigan, to Colorado, to the Smokey Mountains. 

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

We have photos of the kids doing very simple things, including playing cards with their Nana. 

Hilton Head, SC

It is a joy to see the kids when they were little; when their hair was in different styles; when N still wore glassless glasses. 

 Grand Lake, Colorado 

These photos remind me of aggravation because G has never gone on a trip that he didn't do something that drove us freaking crazy. In the moment, it was supremely aggravating. In retrospect, funny and delightful. 

Forest Park, St Louis MO

These photos remind me of the locations we have taken our children to educate them both historically and empathetically. 

Martin Luther King National Site, Atlanta, GA

These photos remind me that even when we were within our house on our devices completely neglectful of each other we also had times when we are completely in the moment with each other. 

Cape San Blas, FL

Tempering my wants

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I love to travel.
I don't necessarily love the "traveling" part of travel, but I love visiting new places and experiencing new things.

I had hoped to take the family to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons this year but decided a while back that that goal was feasible but not responsible.

Last year was a bit of a money hemorrhage.
New HVAC system and water heater in May.
New-to-us car in October.
And I realized that we had actually gone on not one, not two, but three trips in 2019:
Atlanta, GA during Spring Break, 2019
Cape San Blas, FL during summer 2019
and
Michigan City, IN during fall break 2019.

To go to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons would involve airfare for 5 people, a rental car, and probably two home rentals since we would want to minimize driving between the national parks.
If you've ever looked into flying to Jackson Hole, it is crazy-expensive.

As much as I hated to let the idea go, I had to let it go.
If I proceeded, I would feel guilty for spending so much money when what we really need to do is save.

So, I had to think about where we could go that might give us a bit of a Yellowstone feel without the airfare and rental car.
My kids will agree to just about anything if it involves the possibility of seeing animals.
When we visited Rocky Mountain National Park, we spent an entire day on a hunt to see a moose, and when we finally did on our way out of the park, even G didn't want to get back in the car to leave.

I realized that we could venture to Land Between the Lakes, which is less than 4 hours away and has a bison & elk prairie.
So we're doing a "state"-cation this year.
There is horseback-riding at LBL, and the place we're staying is right on the water and has kayaks.
If we get bored, we can visit Fort Donelson in Tennessee or Paducah.
We're even taking my niece, which will change things up since she has never traveled with us before.

Also, on my list for a short day-trip in spring is Big Bone Lick State Park which, surprisingly, also has bison on site.
The draw, though, is simply the name. 

Vacationing in a post-hurricane locale

We had a two week trip to the beach, which for D was a slice o' heaven.
The children and I would not characterize it that way.
That's not to say it was a bad vacation; it was a good vacation.

The place we went, Cape San Blas, was hit by Hurricane Michael in October 2018, so it was, in some ways, a construction zone. We were fortunate that the main road leading there was completed during our visit.

This is what the road going to the Cape looked like last year after the storm hit.



Here is another shot from last year:


So for the building we stayed in to look like this wasn't too bad (below), although it wasn't the lush, tropical beautiful ideal that most vacationers would like. There were railings missing and blue tarpaulins. Our condo was fine, even though they had gotten over 2 feet of water.

When the hurricane happened, D worried a bit, but my rationale was that the area needed our vacation dollars more than ever. And we had no reference point, so why not go and see?

The beach was lovely, and we were a short walk from St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, which was essentially torn in half due to the hurricane. The northern part of the part is currently unreachable except if you walk there.

Here are pics before the hurricane and after. Sand is now beginning to fill in the space that was breached by the storm.

Here is the road that was destroyed by the storm.

This is the other side where the road continues. 

This is the middle where the road and trees used to be. 

We drove to Panama City one day to break up the beach days and saw Mexico Beach where the eye of the hurricane hit. Obviously, things have improved since this video below was made, but it is obviously in bad shape even eight months later.

In some ways, knowing this place had been through so much made us better, more flexible vacationers. I'm a pretty realistic traveler, but this made me more so.

My parents joined us the first four days, and my MIL got to spend two full weeks watching the dysfunction of our family in all its glory.

My dad and M going into the water. 

My MIL burying G. 

We played ball on the beach with a visiting dog named Hoss.
We took strolls on the beach every night and saw random critters.
We went to Wonderworks, Ripley's, and mini golf in Panama City.
We took an airboat ride in Apalachicola and saw baby gators.
We went horseback riding on the Cape beach.
We watched many episodes of Stranger Things and played Life.
I finished 6 books.
And we were all happy to get back home (except D, although the cats have been snuggling up to him all afternoon so I think he'll be ok).