This
post represents another installment in The Big Switcheroo series – tales from
last spring’s epic journey from the northeast to the Florida Keys and back –
involving family, friends and an extraordinary range of adventures.
Throughout the entirety of our marriage, Alan and I have
maintained a constantly evolving Travel Bucket List. When travel was restricted by our employment
and the need to plan around an allotted number of vacation days, we added additional items
to that list much more frequently than we checked any off. Alan and I (happily) share the same tastes in
travel, and our adventures over the course of 40+ years together have been
eclectic, to say the least. While we
have certainly traveled to many places for many reasons, National and State Parks
have always represented the majority of entries on that Bucket List, sharing
space with tourism hot spots like Myrtle Beach, Disney World, Virginia Beach,
Pigeon Forge, Alaska, Hawaii and the Gulf Coast of Florida, as well as quieter, less
popular vacation destinations. As time
went on, more and more of the “must see” National Parks were checked off the
Bucket List, so that by the end of 2017, the first full year that both of us
were retired from the workforce, the scope of our travel plans widened to the
point where the focus was not so much, “What’s the next National Park?,” but
more like “Where shall we go next and what shall we do along the way?” Suddenly, the possibilities seemed endless.
