There's a lot of Peppa Pig today, as it's Tiny's current obsession. Poor Daddy Pig is pretty put upon in the first season, and we are trying to guess the pigs' ages. Why do they all live on steep hills?
I've branched out from fantasy real estate shopping to fantasy vacationing. I pick out a destination, and then decide if we should drive or fly, what kind of hotel to book, and what sights to see while we're there. I sometimes go as far as deciding what luggage I would choose to take and what kind of clothing would work best for the area. It's fun, especially since we would have to wait on some of these trips even if we weren't in a pandemic, as some of these trips would be miserable with a young toddler.
Fuzzy and I actually do have a short list of the trips we want to take in the next few years. Fuzzy's mother was a travel agent in the '90s, so he has been to all kinds of locations, including Turkey, Greece, Central America, Paris and London, New York, and Hawaii (multiple times). I have not been to as many places, though I am eager to catch up. Having grown up in the Midwest, I have been to a few locations that Fuzzy is interested in, like Chicago, though my friends and I took them a bit for granted as they were right there. There are also a few places on the list that he wants to see again with his children, having had so many wonderful memories of his own childhood visits.
Nobody is quite sure what travel is going to look like this summer, or next spring. I'm not certain when I will feel confident boarding a plane again. We figure our first big trip after things get better will be the birthday trip we promised Kiddo last spring to Legoland in SoCal. It should be a good maiden voyage--a few days in an outside park. After that, there has been some discussion of Hearst Castle. Hopefully, the first couple trips post-pandemic will not drown under our expectations.
One of my friends moved this summer from New York to Utah with two smallish children--I admire her fortitude. I'm not sure if they would have done it this way in normal times, but they rented an RV and loaded it up with what they would need for the first few days before the moving van arrived, plus all the food they would need. They made the trip into a sight-seeing voyage with the kids, showing them lots of natural beauty throughout the United States without having to stop at public bathrooms or restaurants. I suddenly totally wanted that vacation--no security lines, lots of room for luggage, no hotel neighbors, no hasty runs to shady rest areas (There is a rest stop in Nevada that has guaranteed my distrust of Nevada rest stops for the rest of my life. Shudder.), no three-fast-food-meal days. It is really appealing. I'm sure there are drawbacks that I will only discover when I actually do a vacation that way, but I think I like the idea for our next Midwestern trip. At the very least, I'd like to rent one of those vans that has the televisions for the back passengers, so we don't have to hear about how looooooong the trip is every fifteen minutes. Also very appealing.
Our current list includes Chicago, New York, Washington DC (preferably without historic insurrections, thanks), a southwestern tour of Utah Shakes in Cedar City and Santa Fe Opera with side trips to Albuquerque and Zion National, and a theatre trip to Oregon Shakes. We imagine museums and shows and seeing local friends and all kinds of things.
When I was in an undergraduate historical design class, one of our assignments was to create presentations about major international cities, with an overview of important historical architecture and cultural notes like the best districts for accommodation, interactions with the locals, and a few useful phrases. We joked that we were planning our professor's retirement, though I'm not sure how she would have utilized knowing how to say, "Where is the nearest gay bar?" in Spanish. I'm idly considering assigning Kiddo to plan a trip to a different city each month. It'd be interesting to see what she would want to see in these places. Will she have us seeing the Field Museum and Navy Pier in Chicago? Will we make it to the Metropolitan Museums in New York? I'm hopeful that it wouldn't be a series of fast food chains and malls, but one can never be sure.
Travel. I'm hopeful it will happen again soon. Safely.
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