After The Demolition Derby That Was 2020, We’re “Still Running!”

St John, USVI

When I was growing up, my family would regularly attend stock car races at a couple of local race tracks.  A few times a year the tracks would have events called Demolition Derbies, where a bunch of stripped-down cars would start out running around the track and purposely wreck each other, with the last car running declared the winner.  I’m recalling this through 50+ years of possibly (likely!) faulty memory, but as I recall, somewhere near the end when there were only 2 or 3 cars running, the announcer providing the blow-by-blow commentary would say something like “CAR 83 IS SMOKING BADLY, HAS A COUPLE OF FLAT TIRES BUT IT’S STIIIIIILLLLL RUNNING.”  I have to say that after the demolition derby that was 2020, we’re badly damaged but STILL RUNNING.  And hopefully running well enough to hang on through 2021.

Tom and Katy at the beach!

Somewhat counter to the rest of society (contrarians? us?) and despite the various impacts of the virus, Kathy & I look back on 2020 as overall a very good year.  We made some important changes that we possibly would/should have made anyway, but the arrival of Covid made them imperative.  It worked out, and WE”RE STILL RUNNING!  Believe me though, I am quite sensitive to the fact that not everyone can say the same about 2020.  For way too many folks, 2020 was a very ugly year.  A disastrous year.  A demolition derby with not everyone escaping unscathed.  From where I sit, however, life has been pretty darned good and I am thankful for that.

Yellowtail Dam area in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in southern Montana near Fort Smith

But we traveled.  We traveled a bit differently than in past years, with a little more attention paid to places and conditions, avoiding the famous places with big crowds, carrying more of our food and water than we might have taken otherwise, but the country was open and we went.  In fact, we traveled more in 2020 than we ever have.  We spent 90+ days away from home, crossed off 5 new states and visited friends and family in locations far & wide.  Despite only driving 426 miles in March, April & May, we’ve put over 18,000 miles on the Subie since 12/31/19, mostly in the second half of the year and including our 8,000-mile road trip to the Oregon coast and back in September.  And we did it safely, staying away from popular places like National Parks and sticking mostly to sparsely-visited National Monuments, National Historic Parks, State Parks and Wildlife Refuges.  A number of places were not open so we made do by seeing just the outside.  Yes, we traveled!

“Wheel Fence” at the Dahmen Barn along US-195 in Uniontown, Washington

With exceptional (in hindsight) timing we took three cruises in January-February before the virus hit but have stuck to car travel since then.  Staying off airplanes and cruise ships has saved us a bunch of money and allowed us to see parts of the country we might have put off if we had continued to fly places.  It looks like that trend will continue in 2021, since the question of when we might expect to receive a vaccine remains a bit of a mystery.  That assumes that the vaccines are actually effective, that we can eventually actually get one and that the virus begins to subside.  Cruises and air travel will likely need to wait until 2022 for us, but there is still a lot of this country to see and we’re ready to go.

Haystack Rock at sunset over the Pacific Ocean from Cannon Beach, Oregon

Staying out of restaurants has been very good for our waistlines and for our budget.  Kathy & I have never been and will never be skinny, but there is a lot less of each of us to haul around these days.  We’ve been making regular donations of too-large clothes to our local Goodwill.  Even now when restaurants have mostly re-opened, we’re finding that we like our own cooking just fine and we continue to lose weight at a reasonable and sustainable pace without “dieting.”  Interestingly, our reaction to a lot of restaurant food now is that it is over-seasoned, over-portioned, overly meat-centric and over-priced.  We’ve got a great source for fresh fish, a nice selection of our own wine, and find that we can dine in for a fraction of the cost of a fancy meal out.  We love our restaurant people and have many friends in the business, but it is an estranged relationship these days.  We weaned ourselves off of junk food years ago and didn’t succumb to the temptation of “comfort food” during the pandemic.

Lunch stop during our tour of Roatan, Honduras during our February 2020 cruise aboard Norwegian Dawn

I took nearly 17,000 photos this year.  Not as many as 2019 when I took over 21,000, but still a lot!  Why so many?  I take a lot of our grandson Edison, and he moves so fast most of them are blurry!  The number of photos that are actually worth keeping will be far less but remains to be seen as I’m still working on them.  I did get a new camera this year, which was fun, and I have enjoyed working with it and the constantly updated software to process the files.

Perrine Memorial Bridge over the Snake River in Twin Falls, Idaho

We have a lot to be thankful for from 2020 despite all of the negative happenings, and we have plenty of reason to look forward to 2021.  I don’t know how it will all shake out, but the best we can hope for is to get to 12/31/21 in at least as good a shape as we got to the finish line of 12/31/20.  My primary goal is to keep a positive outlook, to find the silver lining in every situation and seek out the positive wherever I need to go to find it!

Shoshone Falls on the Snake River near Twin Falls, Idaho

The photos here are just a selection from the friends and family we were able to visit with this past year and who we look forward to seeing again this coming year!

Boat cruise on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with Jeff and Mary Pat
Jeff Curto and Mary Pat Larue during our cruise on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Jim & Lisa at Seneca Point in Cook Forest State Park in Pennsylvania
Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Bill & Cathy aboard Carnival Breeze
Bill & Cathy, Tom & Kathy in the dining room aboard Carnival Breeze
Jim & Tom atop the Historic Fire Tower #9 in Cook Forest State Park in Pennsylvania
Breakfast with Monte at The Chicken Coop Restaurant in Fort Collins, Colorado
Edison loves Grandma!
Pine cone inspection
World’s Largest Barber Pole in Casey, Illinois
World’s Largest Mailbox in Casey, Illinois
Grandma & Edison reading Cars & Trucks & Things That Go
Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway, part of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in eastern Nevada near Elko
Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah
Roatan Rum Shop in Roatan, Honduras
Roatan Rum Shop in Roatan, Honduras during our February 2020 cruise aboard Norwegian Dawn
Scott and Edison on Mother’s Day 2020
Quarry Exhibit Hall and the wall of dinosaur bones at Dinosaur National Monument near Jensen, Utah
Monte taking Kathy’s picture sitting on “his” rock along the Foothills Trail at the Reservoir Ridge Natural Area in Fort Collins, Colorado
North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina
Fall along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Licklog Ridge Overlook MP 349
Capella on 9 rooftop bar and tapas restaurant at the AC Hotel by Marriott Hotel in downtown Asheville, North Carolina
Nike Missile Base Historic Area in Everglades National Park, Florida
Wine tasting at Ken Wright Cellars tasting room in Carlton, Oregon

 

4 thoughts on “After The Demolition Derby That Was 2020, We’re “Still Running!””

  1. Happy New Year! Glad that we ‘made the cut’ in the photos of your travels and didn’t wind up on the editing room floor. 🙂

    You guys both look fab. Keep up the good work.

    And… as a kid, I LOVED watching demolition derby on TV – never got to see one live. A good analogy for 2020 – STILL RUNNING!

    1. Thanks, Jeff…but of course you made the cut!

      I tried to come up with a good analogy after a newsletter I subscribe to used the term “Still Standing.” After I read that I got the demolition derby idea. I didn’t have any photos of wrecked cars except those from the Corvette museum, so I used our friends and family instead.

      Great way to remember an overall pretty good year, all things considered. 🙂

      1. I have not looked at 2020 with total negativity. There were many good things that happened during the year in my personal life and in some good growth in my life. Yet, I am looking forward to 2021 and all the possibilities we can bring to life. So glad you two were able to visit again this year

  2. While its important to recognize the negative – and we do – it is good to seek and cherish the positive. Kathy & I are glad that we were able to contribute to the positive, for you and for us, last year.

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