I just finished unpacking the bag for the second trip. The conference bag.
I had it so cleverly worked out – I packed a large bag with work clothes and my conference gear. I had to fly to Florida for other reasons anyway, so I used Southwest (two bags, free!) and took the conference bag with me. The purpose of that trip to Florida was to sell Rhiannon’s car (I was on the title so had to be physically present.) And while I was there, of course we went scuba diving, and then did a lot of serious house hunting. We’d been more casually trying to find a house to buy in the area in the eight months that she’d been there, so we decided to take it more seriously, really look at houses, drive neighborhoods, call agents.
We accomplished what we came for – sold the car and then we actually bought a house. WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! Well, we put down earnest money and went under contract. There were plenty of problems with the house but it struck two main criteria for us — first, we love it. Second, we really believe it will be a good investment, long term.
So home I went, intending to take off in a month for my trip to Spain and Morocco. I would return from that trip straight to Ft. Lauderdale and get my bag for the conference. Then I would rent a car and drive up to Tampa (a familiar drive of course,) or Rhiannon would join me at the luxury resort if she wasn’t on a trip and we could take her car. It was planned out so well! The trip home to Vegas from Tampa was already booked on Southwest (two bags free!) so I could bring back the bags from both trips.
Of course before the month was over everything had changed. Rhiannon was in Paris when the rules changed and she was not allowed to return. Eventually her airline found a way to get the crew home, but they were required to come through New York, so their original flight was abandoned. This meant she spent three days in Paris–a hot spot for Covid-19. Then she came through all that chaos of screening in New York. Stayed in New York something like 36 hours. Why the powers-that-be thought that having every human who needed to come to the US from Europe should be filtered all through one airport, then piled in giant crowds waiting to have their temperature taken, then loosed upon that one poor city was beyond me. But that’s what they did. Then they put her on a domestic flight back to Florida. Speculation was rampant that all travel would be shut down, so we quickly decided she should come here to me, so that if she got sick she wouldn’t be alone. I would get sick too in this scenario–but I wouldn’t be alone either.
She brought my conference suitcase with her.
I finally just unpacked it.
I would have flown to Malaga, Spain via LAX today.