History of trip

As a couple that loves to travel, you almost felt something was coming.  Iceland at the end of January 2020 was a great trip.  Katy went from there to Japan for a week and Germany for two more weeks.  She returned at the end of February.  My next adventure was the Big 10 Basketball tournament.  Byran, Jim, and I had great seats to all of the games and had a room downtown when this thing called COVID hit.  That got shut down, and Katy’s and I’s big adversity trip to New Orleans got canceled.  The shutdown was on – but for how long?  No one knew.

At first, it was two weeks, and then we’ll be back in the office.  Then it was April and then July, and then finally 2021 But, since working from home was new to us, we did book a condo on Wrightsville Beach for two weeks – where we worked and enjoyed the downtime.  Even though COVID shut down most stores, there was take-out, and grocery stores were open.  And the trip to Wrightsville Beach is an easy 11-hour drive and a great way to see America.  We did take extra precautions about getting gas because not everything was open.

So we were planning on remodeling our kitchen and lower level – so we got that scheduled, and they were finally able to start in October.  It was the change that the house needed, and I’m super happy that we did it.  But even so, the lockdown was still on – not going out, not going to football games, we got used to it.  So I was stunned that Katy got me a trip to the UK for 2.5 weeks as a Christmas gift.  It took me a second to figure out that it was a trip because the gift was a sheet of paper with sets of numbers and letters.  When you’re not expecting a trip, it’s hard for your brain to process the ticket and confirmation codes.  The plan was to go in late April through early May.  Excitement was beyond words!

So as the new year rang in, a new wave of COVID began, and more chaos pursued.  The UK shut down to foreign visitors and or a ten-day quarantine period.  So we decided to push the trip to the end of September through early October.  And now we just need to see what happens.

Fall of 2020, once everything went back into shut down mode, we booked an Aruba vacation for Feb 2021.  The island had a curfew from 11 pm to 5 am (that didn’t affect us).  It was one of the most relaxing vacations – morning walks with beautiful scenery, spent the afternoons chilling on the beach, and then walking somewhere for outdoor dining.  The best thing was that there weren’t many tourists, so it felt like we owned the place.  As you can see from the pictures from the link above, we did a lot.  But we also learned that traveling wasn’t that hard.   Because we still had leftover dollars on airlines, we booked a trip to Vegas and some hiking at the Grand Canyon for August.  Fly into Vegas and then drive 4.5 hours to the south rim of the Canyon.  That is a beautiful drive – nothing like the drives in Indiana.  Once again, we felt like we owned the Canyon – though there were folks there, the parking lots were mostly empty.  We had no problems or lines to wait in to get into the park.  Locals told us that there could be up to a four-hour line to get into the park during peak season.  We found that interesting because the WSJ had written an article about how people were flooding the national parks, and it was hard to get in.  Maybe it was because we went mid-August, and most schools were back in session.

And now life is about to speed up—a lot of activities going on in September.  Labor day weekend Katy and I went to Madison, WI, to pick up Sarah.  Sarah and Drew wanted only to have one car in Indy for their special weekend.  Great weekend in Madison with 80,000 footballs fans at the game and around 140,000 in total.  The following weekend Sarah and Drew’s wedding number two happened.  It was a great time, and even downtown Indy had gone maskless.  It was a great event with around 120 folks.  And so far, no word of COVID.  Though you read how everything is shutting down and how vaccinated folks are getting sick and going to the hospital – I guess they call that “Break Through” cases.  Anyways – I don’t care what the person’s vaccination status next to me is because I’m vaccinated.  I’ve done my part, and I can’t control what everyone else does or doesn’t do. So I’m not letting them control my life.  And now we are only a few days away from the trip.

Bruce flew to London Sep 12, 2021to start his next chapter in getting his Masters in Medieval Studies from the University of Exeter.  His leaving helped us to figure out all of the unique COVID things that we have to do.

It’s Monday, and we leave Wednesday afternoon.  It’s finally hitting that we are getting to go.  We are all set for accommodations, rental car, internal flight from London to Islay, Scotch tours scheduled; it’s time to go.  

So this morning, we have to get a COVID test so that we can fly on Wednesday. I can’t lie; this is one test that I’m not sure what the outcome will be, even though I feel lovely.  So yes, I’m excited about the trip, but what if one of us has a positive test?  Both feel fine, but now it hit me that our whole experience comes down to one medical test (actually two).  I guess that I’m a little concerned or worry is that for the past three weeks, it’s been non-stop, Madison, the wedding, the Colts game on Sunday. That’s the most folks that we have been around in the past 18 months.

The plan

So the high-level plan is to fly from Indy to Heathrow (9/22 depart and 9/23 arrival).  Pick up the rental car and drive down to Weymouth – the Jurassic Coast area.  Make one stopover to see Bruce in Exeter and then spend the week doing day hikes.  On the 29th, we return the rental car and fly from Heathrow to Islay.  We have a place in Port Ellen until Oct 5th, when we fly back to London and spend the last three nights.  I am excited because we have reservations at an excellent restaurant (that I’ve been trying to get to for several years). I hope I didn’t set the bar too high.  Also, while in London, we want to meet up with some of Shannon’s college roommates/friends.  And then, finally, we head home on Oct 8th.  

So that’s the plan – I’ll update the Actuals as we go along.

Actuals

Ok, game on! The COVID test came back negative! Usually a very positive person, I’m ok with being negative.