Don’t get me wrong, it was FUN being at home. We had the chance to catch up with friends in person sharing drinks and good times, to chill out in the pool as we re-acclimated to the desert heat, and to appreciate deep gulps of salty ocean air with a bike ride along the coast. Oh how we missed the sea! Oh yeah, missed the friends too 🙂
But there’s a but. The relentless media COVID coverage with the rise and fall of daily cases & hot spots, the latest lock-down measures and ever-increasing death toll seemed so much more acute at home. From a personal point of view, it was clear the cruise industry’s recovery would be a long gradual uphill struggle. Pair this with my company’s extension to remote working for an additional few months, and getting itchy feet was inevitable. Bring on COVID escape road trip part 2.
However, that damn COVID played havoc with our trip planning. Our initial plan involved the state of New Mexico – but they required a self-quarantine or negative test, hassle factor way up there. So we binned that in favor of our go-to summer Frisco base. After that, we’re thinking east but right now all bets are off.
A few things to take care of at home first: teeth done, eyes done, chiropractor done. Hair not done but hey, one for the road. The truck was serviced and Basecamp almost serviced (long story, don’t make me go there). Less than two full weeks after we rolled back into Santa Clarita, we rolled right out again, trusty Basecamp in tow.
Essentially a 1,000 mile weekend of driving to get to our first base, Frisco. Overnight stop number one was a case of “getting dark, need to stop, there’s a brewery nearby, this will do”. Turned out to be better than a case of make do – Cedar City in Utah had a brewery and a vibe.
You need a mullet and mustache to really fit in though.
Creatures of habit, Sunday night en route to Frisco brought us to a Harvest Host distillery we’d previously visited in Dotsero, Colorado. We already knew their coffee spirit was the bomb. This is also the place where they add all manner of ingredients into their uber-alcoholic spirit to steep and soak and bathe. These are happy ingredients that end their lives basking in this way: cacao nibs, ginger, star anise, turmeric. Random cocktails galore and an early night!
All that remained was an hour long commute into Frisco the next morning. You’re going to hear so much about the leaves and the trees in the next post so I’ll save it to then. But put it this way, if this was the regular commute to work, you’d just want to keep on driving…
Passenger view along the I70. Good job I wasn’t driving.