Hello Everyone,
Another week has come and gone here in Washington D.C. Time has taken on a different quality for me here. I’m very used variety in my life, so when I get a chance to stop and catch my breath, it’s actually kind of nice. Now I’m through the “catching my breath” phase and into a routine phase which I know is how most people’s lives simply are. It has its ups and downs, but more than anything the time just seems to slip away. I hope every week to at least have something to show for that week, but even if there isn’t anything tangible it’s another week of keeping myself safe and sane and another week of helping who I can do the same. Sometimes it’s the little things that can make a difference too. This week I saw my first lightning bugs of the summer and it reminded me of how magical these little critters are. How cool is it that they can just glow like that in the dark? When I used to guide night snorkel tours in the islands, I used to try and show people some phosphorescence in the water, but lightning bugs are way cooler than that. They fly and they glow. In my next life, it wouldn’t be a bad choice. On a completely unrelated note, my mother set a new personal record for rabbits seen on her morning walk this week with 16. Like I said, sometimes it’s the little things.
My week started with a relaxing Thursday. I’m sure I did things, but I can’t remember what they were. There are more of those kinds of days recently too. I did have a nice Zoom chat with some of my friends from college and it felt really good to laugh for a while. Friday was exciting because we tapped our recently brewed homebrew and I have to say it was pretty tasty. We sampled it alongside other beers of the same kind (Kolsch), and ours held up okay. We also brewed a fresh batch on Friday as well, an American Cream Ale this time, so we’ll see how that works out in a couple of weeks. It’s been bubbling away in the fermenter, so that’s a good sign. After all of the beer excitement, we enjoyed some nice weather outside on the patio with some snacks and an exciting game of Skip-Bo, one of our go-to pandemic card games. It wasn’t a bad Friday at all.
Saturday I met up with a friend for a nice walk down in Rock Creek Park, a wonderful National Park unit which splits the city down the middle along the natural valley formed by the creek. It was a beautiful day for a walk, and hence was a little more crowded than I would have liked, but we did okay. My friend brought her dog along and he seemed to enjoy the exercise as well. We sat for a while by the water and chatted away the morning and for a minute, it almost felt like normalcy.
That evening, I went over to another friend’s house and we sat across from each other on his rooftop deck and had a few beers. The weather was perfect and the sunset was beautiful from up there and it was nice to be somewhere other than home for a night. We agreed on quite a few things which may come out better on the other side of all of this and it was nice to try and think positively about things for a while and of course to spend time with some friends.
Sunday also seems to have passed in a blur. I know I got some work done and edited the rest of my Gettysburg photos, but other than that it was pretty quiet.
Monday, on the other hand, hit me hard with some devastating news. The tour company which I work for and have for much of the last 20 years has been forced to permanently shut their doors. The current pandemic has really hit the tourism industry hard, but probably few sectors of it have been hit harder than group tours. We simply cannot operate now, nor will we be able to in the foreseeable future. You can’t put a bunch of strangers together in a small vehicle and drive around breathing each other’s air and sharing meals and tents and the like with this disease floating around. Since our summer busy-season has already been canceled, and there is no way of knowing whether next summer will be any different, they’ve chosen to cut their losses for now and just shut the whole thing down. This is a huge blow to me personally as I’ve spent much of my adult life working for this company. We survived 9/11 and the subsequent blow to tourism, and the recession of 2008 and its associated downturn. I worked through them all, but this has just been too much. There is no reason for them to hang on anymore. I know when all of this is over, and it will be over someday, that tourism will rise again. I will find work and someday I’ll be out there guiding again. But that day got a little further away this week and it will be a little harder to reach, and it will never be the same as it was. Of course maybe it will be better. Nothing I can do but wait and see though, which was the case before this news hit me anyway.
I spent the day reaching out to some of my friends in the company just to be sure I understood what was going on. If nothing else, it was nice to touch base with some of them and catch up a little bit.
Tuesday my mom and I continued our look at the Civil War with another trip to the battlefields of the Eastern Theater. We went back to Virginia to visit the battlefields of The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. These were the beginning of what’s called The Overland Campaign as General Ulysses S. Grant took control of the Union Army and began making a push towards the Confederate Capital at Richmond. It was a horrible couple of weeks of fighting with a tremendous loss of life, but it was interesting to see and learn about. It was also nice spending the day with my mom, and despite the clouds it was a pretty nice day out. We had another great tailgate picnic lunch too, and finished the day with a visit to the spot where Stonewall Jackson died after being shot during the battle at Chancellorsville. I hope to get my photos from the day edited and published soon, but have included a few in this post. We got back to Washington for another great Taco Tuesday, which is such a simple meal to do at the end of a long day.
Today I had another session of math tutoring. It’s definitely interesting to pull out some of my old math books from my teaching days and realize that hanging onto them for all these years was the right decision after all. I’m enjoying working with my student and I think we’re making some progress. It is not inspiring me to go back to teaching full-time, but I will enjoy helping out for the summer. I got back home just as it was just starting to rain and right now it’s storming pretty hard out there. I do like a good thunderstorm, especially when I’m warm and safe inside.
This coming week I have not made any plans yet. I guess when you fall into a rhythm, you kind of flow with it for a while. Our rhythm is pretty good, all things considered, and I’m still very grateful to have somewhere to land during all of this, especially now that I have no job to go back to. There will be some real thinking and considering over the next few months as to where to go from here, but I’m sure I’ll land on my feet in the end. It wasn’t the road I planned to take, but I’ll make the most of it while I’m on it. When the time comes to take a hard right and head towards the horizon, I’ll be ready.
Thanks for following along y’all. I wish I was out there traveling and taking pictures and going on adventures, but it’s raining out and I’m keeping dry and for now, anyway, that’s pretty good.
Have a great week. Stay safe. Take care of your physical and mental health as best you can. I’ll see you right back here next week.
-Mike