The One With The Crick & The City

Note: We recently wrapped up our annual summer trip to visit family. While you wait for a blog post about that trip, here is a piece I wrote back in the spring of 2020 regarding our first trip following the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

Our typical Memorial Day weekend usually involves a staycation with a trip to our county pool and Water Country USA, both just down the road from us. Given the current world climate and with states having resumed opening, this year we traveled to visit family we hadn’t seen in nearly six months over the long weekend that unofficially kicks off summertime. One set of our children’s grandparents lives just outside of New York City. Pre-pandemic, my kids were often exposed to city life and culture. We typically visited NYC two or three times a year for Yankee games, Broadway shows, trips to different museums, or to simply try new, exotic eateries, shop, sightsee, and explore all the boroughs of the city, all experiences my kids deeply miss at the moment. Meanwhile, the second set of grandparents resides in a rural area on top of a mountain, remote from the rest of the world as well as reliable Internet service, ha. Mommom and Poppop own acres of land as well as a pond and a “crick” (creek). Here, my kids enjoy fishing, swimming, paddleboating, searching for frogs and newts, four-wheeling, camping out, and other aspects of quiet country life while catching up with their cousins, everything that is the complete opposite of the NYC way of life. My daughter remarked after our Memorial Day weekend trip how much fun she had during our time away. I feel so blessed that my children have the best of both worlds when it comes to hanging out with family. Traveling isn’t just about packing up your suitcase and jetting off to explore a new place. It’s more about exposing yourself to different people, cultures, and lifestyles, all which can still be done in the age of social distancing.