Lately I have been dreaming of traveling again. Tom and I have been in Ohio eight months now and in our house for seven. This is the longest we have stayed in one place since we retired and I am getting pretty antsy to move on. We are enjoying our time here, especially the time with Mom and Dad and John and Jackie, but it is cold and dreary and our view looks the same most days.
With the pandemic we won’t be going much or far until we get our vaccinations. Mom and Dad are vaccinated, and we are hoping that we will be by the end of summer. Tom is optimistically hoping for April, but it has been hard to be optimistic this last year. After we get our vaccinations, I have a vision of taking a car road trip and just traveling from house to house of our friends that we haven’t seen for over a year.
The RV is also calling. It has looked so cold and lonely sitting in the driveway all winter. We haven’t been in it enough yet to really feel comfortable. One week in September is not enough to make the RV our own. I have a trip all planned to coastal North Carolina. There are four National Park sites within 100 miles and I am ready to go. I just have to convince Tom that we can maintain social distancing. March sounds like a good time for such a short trip.
I have been dreaming of traveling further afield. Tom and I spent an afternoon thinking about National Park sites where we might want to work once the parks are accepting volunteers again. California, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona all have some spots we are interested in going. It will be interesting to see how we feel about living in a much smaller RV for three or four months at a time. I want to work less and travel more – if we are going to see all 421 National Park sites we need to get going!
Even further afield, I have been dreaming of traveling overseas – on a cruise, naturally. I spend a lot of time browsing cruise websites. We were supposed to go on a four-month cruise last year. So many things got canceled last year that the cruise seems like a small thing now. But I still want to see the places we were planning to go and so many others.
I am dreaming of an around-the-world cruise. Most of them are around four months long and I don’t think I would have a problem being on a ship that long. I had one all picked out for 2023, but all the around-the-world cruises for 2023 are sold out! Guess I’m not the only one dreaming of traveling again. I wonder when the 2024 cruises go on sale? There are still some spots on the cruise that circumnavigates South America – that sounds interesting.
Until we get our vaccinations, I will continue to dream. Dreaming of traveling has become something of a hobby. How about you? Where are you dreaming of going?