Colorado was our third summer trip in just two months (after Chicago and Vegas) and my 17th State. It promised to be a great trip with mountains and beer featuring prominently on the itinerary. To boot, we had Danielle’s best friend Melissa and her husband, Stephen, as our excellent local tour guides.
Back in June, we found ourselves somewhere neither of us really wanted to be. Las Vegas. So we hired a car and took a mini road trip from Vegas, west to the Grand Canyon.
I had flown into Las Vegas to join Danielle who had already been there for a few days with work. Her team were representing a new hotel/casino, Resorts World, which was opening on the strip. I’ve never had much interest in visiting Vegas, nowhere close to the top of the list of places to visit, but when opportunity strikes…
14 days in the Caribbean sun? Or, 14 days in the bitterly cold New York winter? Could be a hard choice, or no choice at all. In more ways than one!
I’d just dropped Danielle off at Heathrow and was on the way home when I realised I had a missed call from Danielle. My first thought was, did Danielle leave her passport? Or, maybe the flight was delayed/cancelled? But then wouldn’t there be more panicked signs? Multiple missed calls, a text message? Maybe it was a butt/pocket dial.
The beating Mediterranean sun, golden beaches, rugged hiking trails, French wine, and fresh seafood. That was the idea. We’d celebrate a friend’s wedding in Toulouse then travel onto Corsica to enjoy a summer holiday…and our engagement. Unfortunately, all plans got postponed.
Things kept on getting better after we left Caye Caulker. The next stop was San Ignacio, our home for a couple of days. The location wasn’t particularly astounding, barring a local market across the road and the Macal River bordering another town, it was mostly devoid of things to note. Yet, from this town, we were less than an hour away from one of my trip highlights—Actun Tunichil Muknal, or in less tongue twisty terms: ATM caves.
If all had gone to plan, we would have just completed our French vacation/holiday, and I would be in England right now. As it is, like so many things, the trip has been postponed. With most holiday plans out of the question this year, I decided to use some days off for a staycation With New York reopening from the lockdown it’s a better time to take off. With the offices closed on Friday, I took Tues-Thurs off to get six days in a row for the price of three. It’s been a great chance to get some runs and cycle rides in, as well enjoy as much football as I can soak in with the resumption of the Premier League. Ah, and work on this blog!
We’ve been back three of weeks now, a weird few weeks. When we left the city as still firmly in lockdown, the streets were deserted, and we were getting groceries delivered and left outside our door. A lot of things changed while we were upstate: cases went down a lot, the state started reopening in certain areas, summer arrived and George Floyd was killed. I’ve already reflected a bit on that first week back with the protests, riots and curfew. My next post will be a chance to reflect more on what the city is like now we’re back but I’ll look back at our couple of weeks upstate here.
This is something I wrote late on Monday, was going to post on Tuesday but #blackouttuesday needed a voice of silence. Now I’m posting on Thursday evening. Protests continue, the curfew has been moved up to 8pm, some looting and rioting continues across New York and the country. Several shops near us were broken into and now boarded up, but unlike earlier this week I don’t hear any sirens or people outside right now (11.30pm).
It’s Friday evening, one craft beer down, Indian on the way and music on. Not a bad start to the weekend.
