When I got married, my wife and I purposefully picked an October date for two reasons. First and foremost, we love autumn. When we can travel we do, and when we plan travel we plan it in the fall! Additionally, it was the travel “off-season” so we thought we might be getting deals on our trips. That second one hasn’t worked out like we thought but still, that was our thinking.
We got married on October 7th. If the year goes well, we are out and about somewhere on this date. This year…that was the plan!
We love Disney and we go…a lot! We used to be Annual Passholders. Annual Passholders are people who pay for a pass so they can a) go the parks parks more than most normal humans and b) tell people they are insane. Proudly.
That was us until we moved away from southern California. A little over a decade ago we jumped in our car and headed to Texas, or more accurately moved AWAY from California!
This year, Walt Disney World turns 50! This is a big deal for us Disney lunatics! We need to be there. Now, Disney, because they are really really good at making money, are having a celebration for….wait for it….18 months! 18 months! But, being insane asylum escapee like beings, we wanted to be part of the first week of the celebration.
Then, Covid bit our family in the butt. It got our son-in-law, who was coming with us on this trip! He is fine, thankfully, but he has most definitelygone over his public school teacher allowed sick/vacation days.
So…lets go see a National Park…we thought.
Not Disney, true, but another one of our obsessions is going to National Parks! We love it. We have National Park passports and we love collecting the stamps and the memories! So…we came up with Plan B! The Great Smoky Mountains! We have never been to Tennessee, and, well, lets go see it!
Then, well, we took another hit. We, like many people, love our pets. They are family. And, when they get sick, we do whatever we can to make them well. Well…over $6000 of unexpected dog surgery vet bills later…we had to cancel Tennessee.
Now we still took a trip…call it a long weekend. We drove north from our home in Fort Worth Texas to Northwest Arkansas. We have life long family friends who run a Goat Cheese Farm in the Ozarks. If you love cheese, trust me, you will love this stuff! My favorite is their Chevre, but they have many varieties and it is all amazzzzzing!
So, we spent a great long weekend with them and seeing some of the sights of Fayetteville & Bentonville, Arkansas. Some of the videos are up on my YouTube Channel, some will be up soon, but the point of this blog post is this…don’t let yourself get so caught up in your plans that you miss out on the blessings of going with the flow.
We had a great time. We hugged friends we hadn’t seen in years, we ate insanely well, we saw amazing sights and simply we had an amazing time.
Covid…murder hornets…insane politics….toxic social media…none of it wins unless you let it. We are blessed. I am so glad we went to see some goats and their friends, and ours, in Arkansas. That mouse and all his friends will be there when go back.
To check out the YouTube Channel mentioned in this post
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel
To check out our friends with the cheese
Very nice. Making lemonade out of the lemons life sometimes throws at you.
I think we should do more long weekends. That was so much fun!