We Have Travel Plans!

A friend pointed out that one thing making this quarantine difficult is that she doesn’t have any plans for the near future. It’s disconcerting enough that time is out of whack, but having nothing concrete to look forward to makes this even stranger.

Our spring travel plans had been based on our house sale—it’s under contract but hasn’t closed. (Yeah, that’s stressful.)

Well, just recently the closing date was pushed back even further. I’ll skip the details, but there it is.

Instead of continuing to base our plans on the house, we’ve now decided to move ahead anyway. We just can’t go back after this. We’ll deal with whatever happens with the contract from the road.

So yay, we’re free to move!

But no, of course we aren’t. We’re safe where we are, and we should stay here anyway because everyone should stay in place—for eight kajillion reasons related to the pandemic.

At least, now that we’re no longer hanging on to the house in our heads, we can plan for after the current travel ban is lifted.

I’d posted previously about our plans for the first year, and in general they haven’t changed other than our trip to Texas. We shouldn’t change our permanent address until after the house sells, so we’re now aiming for Texas in the fall. Before that, this summer we’ll go to the Midwest to visit family and friends, then Texas, then winter in Florida, woohoo!

That’s where the new reservations come in.

What You’re Supposed to Do

Everyone and their brother goes to Florida in the winter, so you have to make reservations, and for a lot of places you need to make them a year in advance. I hear that you should:

research and pick the places you want to visit and stay,
plan your route from place to place,
write in your calendar the dates when reservations are open for each campground (these will be x days out from when you want to stay at each), and then
call each place as your reminder pops up in your calendar—for example. perhaps every two weeks you’ll be calling to arrange to stay someplace, with plans b and c at the ready for each plan a.

What I Did

Of course I forgot all of this, despite having all the time in the world to research and call. It’s like one of those Star Trek episodes when the character is stuck in another universe or timeline or is being held on some planet unawares and can’t snap out of it back to reality.

I snapped back yesterday when my calendar told me to call Jolly Rodger campground on one of the Florida Keys.

Private campgrounds in the Keys have a complex system of allowing reservations first for folks who want to stay all winter, then opening up sites for monthly or weekly visitors only as they become available. So you have to keep checking.

I’d checked with them back in December and had been told I’d be called when a site opened, but I wasn’t called and forgot all about it.

So I spent all morning yesterday on the phone, and it paid off, not with Jolly Rodger (bummer), but with another campground in the Keys, plus two in the Everglades and one near Naples. Oh powers that be, let this all happen!

Still to Do

These reservations cover December, January, and February, but we still should book March, which is also supposed to be a busy time in Florida.

All this thinking about the future concretely is a little overwhelming after living in a bubble for several weeks, so I’ll figure out March later today (I hope) and Texas later this week.

In the meantime, I’ll dream about Florida.