trips in waiting

When I was working, often long hours with little vacation, I would muse on the things I'd like to do and trips I'd like to take if only I had the time to do them. But when I was between jobs and had the time, I'd forget what I'd been thinking of. Eventually I decided to keep a list and just consult that the next time I had the opportunity to travel. This worked splendidly.

So now I think I will start a list of the trips I want to take once the virus is no longer a danger. This doesn't include a pair of 2020 conferences I already signed up for which have hopefully (a word I'm using in the traditional sense) rescheduled themselves for 2021.

1 and top priority: to visit my brother in Pittsburgh. I haven't been there since before he moved house (though I've seen him when he came out here), for lack of an urgent reason to go. But he was recently ill for a while, and I couldn't go and help out (not least because Pennsylvania has quarantine). So as soon as I can go, I will.

2: to visit our nephew and his family, and some friends, in Seattle. This one is for B. and me together. We're going to drive up, which we never have done together further than Portland. But hey: she's retired, so we have the time. We were going to do that after going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in October, but that's out, so it'll have to be next year.

3: Pinnacles National Park. Day trip, since it's only 80 miles from here. I've been to all the National Parks in California at one time or another, but I haven't been to Pinnacles since before it was a national park. I was thinking of going in February, when I still had an annual pass I got without asking when we went to Cabrillo NM in San Diego last summer, but I didn't get around to it, and after that it was too late.

4: The Mother Lode gold country in the California Sierras. This is a road trip I started working out last year. I've been here before, several times, but never comprehensively or in the amount of detail I'd like. As I worked it out, I could do this satisfactorily in three full days plus time to travel there and back. And it's smaller-scale than, for instance, my week in Montana a couple years back.