Flexibility

 

Last year the summer recap video I made was for May through August. Because I already made a video about the vacation we took in May, I decided to only include June through August in this summer's video. The next video I'm planning to make will be about our nine-day trip to New England later this month. Starting in 2020, a lot of flexibility has been needed in regard to vacations. Although it hasn't been as obviously related to COVID this year as it was in 2020 and 2021, flexibility is still necessary. For our trip in May it was because of things like construction (lighthouse in Saint Augustine and the Billy Graham Library) and the fact that some national park sites in Virginia went from being open seven days a week to only being open five days a week. I'm not sure why more and more National Parks are making that change in 2022. Maybe it's due to a lack of staff? Whatever the reason, I had to do a lot of work revising our vacation plans for this upcoming trip a few weeks ago once I found out that some parks had reduced the number of days that they are open over the past few months. For example, we thought our first stop would be Hyde Park, but two of the three National Park sites there are now closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and our trip is starting on a Tuesday. There were some others in and around Boston that we had to eliminate from our plans because they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I decided to still visit one in Rhode Island even though the Visitor Center will be closed the day we will be there because it's closed Monday through Wednesday. One downside to the revised plan is that we have to leave at 5:30am the day we leave. Our teenager isn't happy about that! But in general, we will do less driving on this trip and will typically be departing our lodgings around 8:30am.

I have to wait until next Tuesday to book our tickets to tour Ben and Jerry's, but otherwise I think I am done planning our next trip. There are so, so, so many choices involved in planning a vacation. There are many places I considered including but didn't in the end. The current plans include eleven National Park sites (three are focused on either nature/art and the other eight are historical), one miniature golf course, one farm, four factory tours (PEZ, teddy bears, cider, and ice cream), one whale cruise, two zoos (one is a lantern tour at night), four historical sites/museums that aren't affiliated with the NPS, one aquarium, one IMAX movie, one play about the Salem witch trials, two cliff walks along the coast (ME and RI), and one visit to a place where the kids can experience bumper boats and/or go-karts for the first time in their lives. I have gift cards for seven of the eight dinners. We plan to get pizza (without a gift card) in Newport, RI on the eighth night and hopefully have dinner at our church on the ninth day, which is the day we come back home. We *should* have a free breakfast seven of the eight mornings, and I plan to pack snacks for our lunches although we might splurge for popovers at the Jordan Pond House when we are at Acadia. Many museums, zoos, aquariums, etc. now required that timed tickets be purchased ahead of time. Even though I'm a planner by nature, I'm not accustomed to being that specific as to predicting exactly what time we will do something, but that is the way things are in 2022. 

Speaking of flexibility, I've also made a lot of changes to the lesson plans for this week. First, I thought we were going on an all-day field trip on Thursday. Then I thought we were going on two half-day field trips, but today's field trip was cancelled because of the weather. The woman hosting the monarch butterfly class tomorrow said it will be held rain or shine. Although the drought wasn't good for the farmers/gardeners, it did mean plans weren't cancelled due to rain the last few months. In contrast, we've gotten quite a bit of rain the last few days. I'm thankful for the opportunities to take the kids on field trips and vacations! 

P.S. Photo credit to Nadia for the photos in this post. She took them at Longwood Gardens in June.