It’s been nearly two years of travel disappointment. At this time in September 2019 we were headed to New York and plotting our New Year’s journey through Florida to find or build our retirement home. Expectations were at the highest point ever with trips to St. Kitts, Bali, Egypt, Norway, Vegas, Phoenix, Hawaii, Canada and Russia all scheduled. As it turned out, Barry Manilow in Las Vegas was the last major concert we would see, while March Madness and  Spring Training would be cancelled. Travel was restricted to the Continental United States, so all these other adventures were postponed or dropped in lieu of Covid. We were stuck in a downtown Portland apartment, staring at each other, and concerned about the riots just outside our doors. 

Our cars that had sat mostly unused in an underground parking garage suddenly became our salvation. At least we could drive to Glacier National Park, although the Canadian leg had to be scratched. It was also the opportune time to move one of our cars to Florida once we decided that Venice would eventually be our permanent home. The route took us through San Francisco, Cambria, Tucson, Marfa, Austin, and Tallahassee. Then, instead of flying to St. Kitts where my wife was meeting friends, we stayed on South Beach in Miami. 

Moving turned out to be a major hassle, complicated by my wife’s Kidney Stone emergency. This second  cross-country drive with our other car was through uneventful cities like Ogden, Burlington, and Clayton before we finally arrived in Indianapolis for surgery. In the meantime, we were closing on the new house and supposedly racing the moving truck to Venice. Our schnauzer Tally was with us this time, so the hotel accommodations weren’t as nice, as if that might have made up for my wife’s pain. Atlanta was our next stop, but we were no longer in any hurry because the movers had yet to leave Portland. As it turned out, we would move into our new home after just one night in a Venice hotel while our furniture wouldn’t arrive for another month. 

So here we are five months later and still getting organized. Instead of Covid affecting our travel plans, this time it was fires that cancelled our Tahoe adventure this week. Concert tickets for Santana/EWF and Jackson Browne have been postponed another year, so we’re still stuck on the Barry Manilow performance memories rather than something fresh. We’re just hoping that nothing interferes with our October house guests, November tour of the Kennedy Space Center, or December Disney plans and afraid to schedule anything else until next year. Second and third waves of the virus are once again shutting things down, so we sadly have No Expectations.