The travel blog returns: where we were supposed to be today

We were supposed to be on a plane right now, heading to Kauai. We had planned it and saved up for it for almost 2 years, but then the bizarre situation that is our world these days stepped in. It sucks. A lot of things suck right now, but I am not so delusional or spoiled that I don't understand that my Hawaiian getaway is not nearly even close to high up on the list of Sucky Things Happening In The World Right Now.

But even though we are incredibly grateful that we have not lost loved ones, jobs, or our minds (although that last one really depended on the day), we are still, admittedly, incredibly sick and tired of being cooped up and having our lives put on hold. (Have you seen those pandemic memes about the introvert friends needing to check on their extrovert friends because they are most certainly, absolutely not okay? Yeah, that's us.) We, as a family, are rarely home. We rarely sit still. We are always out and doing, and when we are not, we are planning the out and the doing. So when our big trip to paradise had to be postponed another year (no, I am not even contemplating the possibility of 2021 being as fucked up as 2020), we sat down and said "Okay, so what can we do instead?" 

We are lucky that when COVID pretty much shut down every kind of travel option, we were able to resort back to our usual mode of summer adventure: our RV. We usually spend at least a year planning and organizing our summer road trips...from the stops to the activities to the daily mileage. This time, we turned to the kids immediately after canceling our flight to Kauai and asked "If we can't go to Hawaii this summer, what would make a good runner up?" Luckily, this was one of those rare times when all four of us had the same response: Outer Banks, NC...where our oldest learned what the word "bliss" meant many moons ago. So in an unprecedented and very non-type-A-personality move, we threw together a 5-week road trip with the only non-negotiable being a very long stay at our favorite beach campground in Outer Banks.

We loaded up and headed out yesterday, driving about 8 hours from South Florida to a little campground in Georgia where we just spent the night. Today, we were supposed to stop to sleep at South of the Border, the infamously tacky and frighteningly similar-to-a-cheap-horror-movie-set campground where we stayed a couple of years ago.  But after making really good time and only driving about 5 hours, we all agreed we'd stay on the road a few more hours.

But first, the boys humored me by recreating some cheesy pics from our last stop there: 

TODAY...

  

...and THEN

Ben
TODAY...

...& THEN

Kai
TODAY...

...& THEN

We'll be staying somewhere in North Carolina tonight and head out tomorrow to Cedar Island, where we will kill time in a very isolated and oppressively hot beach area while we wait to get on the ferry to the Outer Banks early the next day.

Since I woke up this morning, I have been thinking about where we were "supposed" to be today. After all, the date June 10, 2020 had been figuratively circled on my calendar for more than a year. I even had one of those silly vacation countdown apps on my phone. It had a little Hawaiian-themed suitcase graphic on it. I am incredibly aware of how lucky we are...driving to spend all these days in our second favorite place in the world, and then moving on to spend more weeks discovering new places and revisiting old faves. So even though I was "supposed to be" on a plane right now, I am pretty damn happy and grateful that I am where I am, with my three favorite people around me, healthy and well.  And maybe...just maybe...on the road all together in our beloved RV is where we were "supposed to be" today all along.