Travel on My Mind

 

     A link on The Most Perfect Road Trip came up in my news feed from some Kitchen page I follow. Oh my juices are flowing for planning a good road trip. I shared it on my Facebook  page mostly so I could find the article later. A couple of my sisters popped notes in the comments about doing a sisters trip. That would be eight of us because of course we would include my sister-in-law who I've never not known. Really there is no reason we couldn't do this-none of us have any kids at home, me being the last empty nester. 

     While making the full 360 degree trip in one go would be pretty impossible until a few of us retire, picking one path might be an option. Doable. I can't see though the oldest sister wanting to be in a car or van that long. She's sort of a homebody anyway, other than in her younger years she loved going to Vegas. We used to do a sister's weekend, but the last one where we rented a  cabin about two hours away was the weekend before my sister passed away. While some have vacationed together, and we still do a shopping day that starts with breakfast out, a mid afternoon happy hour, and ending with dinner and girls poker night, it hasn't been the same. Needless to say, we didn't even do that this year. C'est la vie de pandemic. 

     I'm drafting this blog post while watching Hannah Ricketts vlog on her lock down wanderings using her one hour of daily exercise to walk and take us along to lovely London neighborhoods. She clicked and showed several houses for sale on a certain street. They ranged between 1,600,000 to 1,800,000 pounds! I mentioned the other day Stanley Tucci's Italy, and Laurie was kind to put the start date, February 14th, in the comments. I think these tours from my television will be what I have for quite a while. I can still plan though. It's unreal to think my daughter was on route to New Zealand a year ago. Now, I'm leery crossing the bridge into Wisconsin! 

     I went along with Hannah to the London Zoo. I had to agree and share her disdain to see people coming off a ramp, not wearing masks (as is the requirement) and leaving paper cups just laying on a ledge, not being bothered to deposit their garbage. What makes people behave this way! I swallowed hard when she mentioned her discounted fee was 26 pounds for her visit!  Well, our local Minnesota Zoo is I think $19.95 so considering the location, I guess it's on par. The animals need to be taken care of pandemic or no pandemic. 

     I'm not keen on staying in a hotel at the time being, though even my son who is more careful about the virus than anyone I know, did for work. They had very strict bubbles, and still ended up barely getting the project done before they had more cases than they could sustain after isolating staff. I think I may plan some day trips, map them out for relatively nice days. Some would be pup friendly and others  would need to work for our daughter's schedule to come hang with him like she did when we visited our daughter four hours away. There's only a few things we can do in the Twin Cities, and because most things need to be reserved, it feels like  planning a trip. No impromptu outings. You need reservations for both zoo's and the museums are not open but may start with limited hours at the end of the month, with reservations, and limited capacity. I guess that will feel as safe as I do when grocery shopping. Our best bet continues to be different county or state parks, dressed warm, and bringing our own food and drink. Add zoo's and museums to the the list of 1,000 that I will never  under appreciate again. 

     I have no shortage of vacation time banked, and will replace in short order any I use. DH has 15 days to use in  2021, and he will use at least 6 planning to take three combination Friday Saturdays off this summer giving him three Thursday-Sunday weekends at the cabin. I think we might stay there Sunday-Thursday a few times as well, since he could just go to work from there, but still get a nightly swim and an outing with the boat. If things still don't feel safe to us for air or hotel staying, we'll likely take another fall week at the cabin.

     I'd like to reschedule our Las Vegas trip but that requires flying. I think a fall driving trip down the Mississippi roadways could be a really nice trip-Minnesota to New Orleans. Where will you plan to go once we are free to move about the cabin? Are you likely to stay closer to your home communities, or are you going to make up for lost time? Regardless of what country, if you have a road trip to recommend, please share.