This season of the year, I’m often excited about a weekend getaway with my husband. School is underway, kids are between fall sports, and we have lovely parents who make getaways possible.
Actually, even one night of getting away counts as a weekend getaway. We like to stay downtown for one sleep in the big city (Bismarck) and do our own restaurant/pub crawl, snacking here and there and sampling what the taps have to offer.
Like you, I’ve placed “what I usually do” up against “what really needs to happen during COVID-19” a million times now. My husband and I know we can live without this tradition and pick it up again another year.
However.
Even though we arrived at that decision together, I still find myself pondering other ways to get away as a family. Could we stay in a cabin at a state park? One night at a hotel with masks and bleach wipes in hand? VRBO?
But alas, those venues might be lovely, but would it be worth the money when there are few things we would be comfortable going out and doing? And three Lewtons in a VRBO or hotel room for a couple of days would not equal relaxing, I assure you.
Argh.
It seems likely these are the terms under which my family will live in Western N.D., where case numbers remain stubbornly high. I simply need to suck it up and come to terms with these terms.
As I do that, I hope someone writes the following books while I’m not pub crawling or staying somewhere someone else makes the bed:
“A Survivor’s Guide to a Super Fun Home for Teenagers Stuck There When ‘All My Friends are Eating at Applebees'”
“A Tale of the Elastic Pants and the Family Whose Fun is the Coffee Shop Drive-Thru”
“The Alluring Trinity of Netflix, Prime and Disney+”
“Life Without 409”
Until the books are written, I’ll live the story. And we will wait together for this “intermission” to lead to the next chapters.
Lisa Lewton 