Last Memorial Day weekend, we were blazing around the Lake Michigan Circle Drive from Chicago, up the left-hand side of the lake through Wisconsin, to Mackinac Island, and then back down through the resort lake towns on the right hand side of the lake and back to Chicago.
We did this in four days.
And the first day involved a five-hour delay out of DFW and a rental-car snafu that lost me my planned drive through the Wisconsin Dells.
Curse you, mechanical delays and small print on rental car agreements.
That first night, as we rolled into Green Bay, Wisconsin and got settled into our AirBnB, our host asked us where we were headed. When we said that we were going to Mackinac Island in the morning, he said, “Oh, wow, that’s on my bucket list.”
I didn’t say anything, but I thought, “Dude, the ferry dock is four hours from your front door. You can be there by lunch time tomorrow. What are you waiting for?”
On the ferry to Mackinac Island
A lot of our trips are whirlwind tours.
We did all five National Parks in Utah in a four-day Easter weekend.
We did most of Ireland in five days, and then hopped over to the Scottish Highlands for four days.
Rome? We did it in a day.
Why do we speed-read our way through these amazing places?
It’s not because we don’t want to linger.
It’s because this is the amount of time and money we have to devote to these trips. Until the internet decides that we’re “travel influencers” and pays us to travel all the time, we have to keep our day jobs and go when we can.
It’s not perfect, we don’t get to see everything, but that doesn’t matter.
We’re going anyway and enjoying everything that we can along the way.
Next week, we’re going to Barcelona, and on to Provence. Travel expert Rick Steves has a two-week suggested itinerary for Provence. We have four days.
Not enough time? So what! We’re going anyway!
We’re going to stand where Van Gogh painted that night cafe, and walk where Roman armies marched, and stroll where ordinary, unnamed people live out their beautifully unique and precious lives.
Our lives are far from perfect these days, but beauty still matters. Perhaps more than ever, beauty matters.
The enduring, awe-inspiring, nurturing earth is still here.
We are still here.
We still have a bucket list.
And we’re not waiting for perfect.
