An act of hope! We've made our first booking.

My last post was at the beginning of the lockdown.  I was planning to use some lockdown time to work on planning - and I did for a while.  But the pandemic grew uglier and uglier and it sucked much of the hope for travel out of me.  We canceled a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains in April, and a family vacation at the beach for July.  It still looks like it's going to be a while before travel happens - we haven't even seen our grandkids for months.  But today, an act of hope!  I've made our first reservations for our trip.  We've now got accommodations in Banff, Canada for the end of August 2021.  We've also changed our plans for our trip and instead of flying to Great Falls and heading out from there we plan to go to Portland and visit the girls then road trip from there.  We've also added going to see the Palouse area of Washington on our way back.  So travel planning took a new direction and a more serious (yet cancelable) turn.  We are in hopes that a vaccine will be developed AND widely available by next August!

And then came a pandemic

So the planning was going along slowly, with plans to get back on it after returning home from a road trip to Florida and North Carolina which ended in early March.  While we were on the road the beginnings of the Covid-19 pandemic began to raise it's ugly head.  Shortly after getting home and right after deciding to cancel our trip to Oregon to see our family we were in lockdown.  So it's a weird place right now - I have PLENTY of time to pursue research and planning, all while HOPING we will be able to go in August/Sept 2021.  Right now the important thing is for us to stay well, and for the country to begin to heal from this awful virus.  Who knows what the future brings?

In the beginning....

In the beginning of all trip planning there is a LOT of time on trip advisor, reading travel blogs, making many decisions.  In the past, I've blogged our trips on this platform which has been a wonderful way to relive our adventures as well as sharing them with family and friends who are interested.  I was THRILLED to discover Blogger is still alive after them saying it was going away for many many months.  Having discovered it's alive and well, I will excitedly begin our blog for a planned trip in 2021 to Glacier, Jasper, Banff, and Lake Louise.

Our early idea was to take Amtrak out to Glacier.  After talking to friends who had taken the train cross country, we have now backed off this idea.  It's not dead, just not a focus.  Now our thought is fly out to Great Falls, where my cousin and his family live and if they are willing visit them for a couple of days and use that as our starting point.  Still MANY MANY decisions to make (when, where, how) but let the planning begin!