So, things around the Schneiduk household have been pretty quiet, at least when it comes to travel. (Don’t get us started on the hassles of trying to do home renovations in this market . . . we closed in March and haven’t even broken ground on the renovations . . . which keep increasing in price every time we turn around . . . oh, how I wish we were still traveling . . . stupid covid . . . .) That said, we have taken three short road trips this summer. And, while we don’t have much to say about our boring little road trips, I had a couple of bird photos that I just had to share, so here goes.

The first trip saw us driving from New Orleans, all the way across Texas, through the tip of New Mexico, and into Arizona to visit Robert’s parents. If you ever think to yourself “hey, maybe I should drive across Texas,” we highly recommend that you have second or third or fourth thoughts (or however many it takes before you change your mind). Driving across Texas is one of the most boring things you can possibly do. The traffic is bad on the east side of the state, the scenery around I-10 leaves much to be desired, and the western part of the state is beyond desolate. (Can you tell we aren’t fans of much of Texas?) And, the worst part is, after our visit was complete, we had to do the drive all over again. At least on the return we drove through Texas Hill Country (which, honestly, cough, cough, it pains me to say this, actually is quite pretty) and spent a couple of nights in Austin. But, from now on, I think visits to Robert’s parents are most definitely going to involve an airplane. And, post-covid, are probably going to involve a visit to Vegas before and after our visit to Arizona.

The second trip saw us driving from New Orleans to Chicago and back. That drive wasn’t nearly as miserable (at least the scenery was green instead of the brown of Texas). Flying would have been faster, but we needed to get a bunch of stuff from our storage locker — Robert was going crazy without all of his accoutrements to make cold coffee. The best part of that trip was safely seeing so many of our friends, all of whom were vaccinated. Whooo hoooo! Boy, have we missed getting together with friends. But, our livers haven’t missed some of them . . . . (they know who they are).

Our last trip was up to Lake Holcombe, Wisconsin to see my parents. We really are gluttons for punishment, as the drive to Wisconsin is nearly the same as the drive to Chicago. After a couple of days of pontooning around the lake looking for bald eagles, on our way home we took a detour to Lexington, Kentucky. Robert couldn’t pass up my offer of being the designated driver while he tasted bourbon and beer (and even gin) at the distilleries.

Now, we are back in New Orleans and back to masking up every time we go inside a building other than our house (thanks to all the anti-vaxxers), so who knows when real travel will resume again. Ugh.