Let out and Loopy - Episode 5- The Escape

     The weather grew warm, the school year came to an end, and the states began opening up. We binge watched nearly every program ever produced and had resorted to watching bad movies about alien abductions...

It was time to get out of the house.

   And by get out of the house, I meant farther than our backyard. Quite frankly, we were pretty fed up with the view from our windows and pretty sure the neighbors were tired of looking at us as well. We needed a change of scenery.

Looks good in backyard, but better elsewhere!

   As the pandemic wore on, it became increasingly obvious that our carefully planned summer vacation plans to see the entire western United States were no longer feasible. Places we wished to visit were gradually reopening in stages, which meant many of the sites would still be inaccessible due to limited facilities and limited staff. To complicate matters, it appeared that everyone else was also tired of their limited view from home and suddenly had the urge to explore the national parks. Several locations of interest reported record number of visitors, and the season had yet to begin. The idea of visiting overcrowded parks without staff and the possibility of closures due to lack of social distancing lacked appeal.

Even less appealing were hostile comments made by locals on social media in regards to people planning trips to their area...

   With heavy hearts, we canceled our trip and began to search alternative travel plans. Destinations closer to home. We split our original trip into smaller camping excursions with breaks in between to restock and regroup before heading out again. It seemed like the perfect plan, not to mention one which would allow us to keep most of our vacation money for next year.

   Our daughter was horrified. This meant she was going to be stuck cooped up in a small space with nothing but her parents for a week at a time! What if it rained?!?

Ummmm... our original trip was for a continuous three and a half weeks.

I envisioned a very wet kid standing in the rain.

I'm told I'm a terrible parent.

   Much to the angst of our teenager, we booked the trips anyway. Iowa was our first destination. Turns out Iowa shares a border with Hell. Pretty sure I overheard this guy with horns and a tail muttering something about heading home to cool off...

   Once we got past the heat, it was a pretty neat place to visit. 

Even with the severe thunderstorms with hail.

We went to the beach.

We went biking.

We had coffee.

We went to the cemetery. (Don't ask.)

We saw lots of wildlife.

  And lovely scenery.

Did I mention full hookup in a state park? SCORE!

 

We anxiously await our next travel destination.