SPRING BREAK DAY 1

My family has had some fantastic vacations in the past twenty or so years. So it is incredibly disappointing that I remember so little about them!

My memory is terrible; I anticipate that a year from now I will likely have only vague impressions of our 2021 trip to Myrtle Beach ... if I don't take the time to write down specific memories. Therefore, I have decided that for the next few days, I will use this space to document this trip.

As for today? Nothing too fun or exciting - just 9 or so hours of interstate driving - so I have nothing but a handful of observations regarding the best and worst parts of the day:

• We left home at 10:30 this morning. In the past, this would have driven me crazy. I prefer to hit the road early. Maybe I am mellowing in my old age.

• The best part so far is that we left the dogs at home with Grandma. I like Ginger and Sugar, but they sure monopolize our attention, from early morning until late at night (and twice just this past week in the middle of the night). It's good to get a break from the barking and the begging and the trips in and out of doors. (Pray for Grandma!)

• The worst part by far is that we don't have Caleb and Hannah with us. That feels very weird. But there was no chance that either Caleb or Hannah would have a spring break that lined up with their younger siblings' since neither is getting a spring break at all this year. (It's the colleges' heavy-handed means of limiting movement of the student body off campus during the present semester - one more reason for me to feel sorry for the college students during Covid.)

• The second best part of the day was driving into spring. By 4:00 in the afternoon, I noticed that we were among trees just beginning to sprout new greenery and daffodils along the highway were in full bloom. 

• The second worst part of the day is immediately ahead: an attempt to get some sleep on lumpy hotel beds in a run down Ramada Inn outside of Columbia, South Carolina.