Why is this night different from all other nights?

We had takeout dinner from a new-to-us restaurant, Coconut Joe’s, and ate it in a new-to-us location, the kitchen of the Residence Inn Bakersfield – we’re on the road for the first time in more than 430 days. Our destination is Palm Desert, using up some of our timeshare points before they meet the same fate as last year’s points – expiration.

The drive down was just like in the old days – lots of trucks on I-5, but it seemed like there were fewer times where there were two trucks side-by-side holding up traffic. We had lunch at home so we were able to skip Harris Ranch for a change, though we did stop at Casa de Fruita.

I saw more unmasked faces at the rest areas than I’ve seen in a year!

One of the places we were supposed to go last year was Iceland. Our trainer had been there and it sounded perfectly wonderful, but….

Today, our trainer told us that he will be going to Iceland again in early July of this year, along with his family. It still sounded wonderful, but….

And then when we got home, we had a note from the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking if we were interested in seeing Iceland this year. Yes, we were! (Besides, they still had our deposit from last year!)

Even better, our son is now scheduled for his first COVID-19 vaccination on Friday, so he’ll be fully-vaccinated by the time our trip happens. Icelandair has non-stop service to Boston, so we are planning to visit him on the way home.

Things are looking up!