After traveling to Florida, our next journe was to the Outer Banks. Still trying to get out and stay safe.
Come late September cousin Ann Marie calls (texts) with an Invite to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, we were still in the sweet spot of the first wave, thinking either the Pandemic was slowly finishing or that herd immunity was a-coming. I know this wasn’t the first or the last time we were wrong! AM’s family had been hit with Covid, she’s a nurse ( and practicing saint) and another incorrect thought at the time was you were fairly safe if you had Covid. So Laura and I figured being in a house with Covid survivors and being somewhat safe ourselves was a recipe for success. Strangely in this case we were right!!!!
Staying in the area around Duck and Carolla Beach was a blast. The area was still somewhat masked and restaurants were mostly outdoors but indoor seating (which we didn’t take advantage of) was available. We did have a strange distancing thing here, At one restaurant that was doing a great job keeping folks 6 feet apart and only having the outside open for dining asked us to wait at the bar for our table. it was nice until it became clear there were going to be a lot of people waiting. The bar was the only place crowded but it became a normal pre-pandemic bar. Well we lived and it was the first time we were next to people we didn’t know in 7 months.
Prior to the Pandemic one of my annual trips is to Las Vegas for one of the weekends of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Rob and I had planned to do that in March of 2020 as well. For the first time, I used a booking agency to book our Vegas trip (I like to try these out on myself before subjugating you) and this agency included airfare. Most travel agents (me included) don’t like to do Airfare. The airlines don’t commission and you all have a lot of particulars about air travel (points, status’s, seat preferences …) so we let you book airfares yourself. Well when Vegas closed in early March our trip was canceled, lots of you lived through this, and having a travel agent at this stage was super important, sadly for me, the agent was me. After years on the phone, everything was credited and the I’s and T’s were crossed. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with The Outer Banks. Well that trip went so well that Cousin Jamie (Chicken Rancher and husband to AM) thought going to the reopened Vegas would be a good idea. It seemed I agreed with him, Rob was still in Denver so without his knowledge he agreed too. This set me off on another Pandemic Adventure
Viva Las Vegas Pandemic Style
Rob and I parlayed our March trip into a stay at Ceaser’s for $49 a night or $3 less than the convenience charge (which we also had to pay, plus an early check-in charge and an if you want pillows to charge not really but there was a lot of added on charges (the pillows came with the room) Jamie booked a room at the Park MGM (formerly The Monte Carlo) it has been completely refreshed.
Counting down the days to Vegas, Rob goes out with a group from work, and guess what, one of them has Covid!! We now had close contact!! BOOM BABY!!! Rob takes one for the team and stays home (poor thing) and It’s Jamie and Tom off into the emptiness that was Vegas Oct. 2020,
