Vacation Plans, Covid-19 style
June 31st started with a forecast of wicked late afternoon thunderstorms. By 7 PM that evening I was cocooned in front of TV watching PBS “NewsHour” while only vaguely noticing the torrential rain pelting against the windows. As I was heading to bed at 10:00 PM, there was a crash of disturbing noise outside. It sounded like non-stop gun fire. I ran outside to the terrace off my bedroom to investigate. With all the tension in the world, not to mention the social unrest in America, I feared the worse. Suddenly there were muffled voices from above. I looked up and saw neighbors perched over the railing of our building’s rooftop garden. They were holding their iPhones in the air in the direction of the deafening noise.
As the series of truncated explosions gained in intensity, I looked down the East River and witnessed, much to my relief, a spectacular display of fireworks. But is wasn’t July 4th, I thought to myself. However, feeling safe again, I stood there spell bound by five minutes of ear-splitting, glittering, shimmering pyrotechnics. Then total silence followed by a curtain of thick smoke slowly rising against the evening’s indigo sky.
MACY’S AT ITS PYROTECHICAL BEST
Back inside the apartment, I googled “Fireworks New York City June 31st” and learned that it was Macy’s! Their “reimagined” game plan—which I had not read or heard about—was to stage brief firework pops ups in each of New York’s five boroughs. But to avoid crowds congregating at the source and potentially spreading the Coronavirus, they did not publicize the where or the when. Leave it to Macy’s to continue their “I-love-you-New-Yorkers” pyrotechnical hug even in the midst of Covid-19.
July 4th with its fireworks, hot dogs and ice-cold rosé wine has always represented the start of summer for me, not Memorial Day. With the pandemic breathing down our backs, July and August this year will be unlike any other. What will we do to replace the family summer vacation? Where will we go now that the EU has closed their doors to American citizens? Guess we’ll just have to stay close to home and make the best of it.
FIVE ADULTS ON A BACK-YARD CAMP OUT ESCAPING LOCKDOWN
I asked a 40-year-old girlfriend who lives in New Jersey what her July 4th plans were. She replied, “I’m going camping in my neighbor’s backyard. There will be five adults in three tents, observing social distancing, of course. We plan to order in pizza, then gather around the grill for s’mores.”
The truth is after being cooped up for four months, Americans are going stir crazy. Everyone is looking for any kind of adventure to get out of the house. There has been lots of news about people using RVs as a means for taking a trip while also safely navigating Covid-19 restrictions. Unlike airplanes, cruise ships and other forms of public transportation, an RV affords you total control of your environment. Call it a perfect quarantine box with four tires, a stirring wheel, and a bed!
RVS, TRAILERS AND BOATS POST RECORD SALES
In fact, my nephew Justin Boss—who has a business in North Carolina selling trailers—told me his business has skyrocketed. Last month, his sales were up 60%. He sells a range of trailers many of which can be custom outfitted with AC, beds, and toilets. Justin’s theory behind America’s rush to escape self-confinement with RVs and trailers has something to do with the government’s stimulus checks. However, instead of a trailer or RV, my nephew opted for purchasing a small boat with his.
Justin called last week from the Florida Keys where he was having his new 21-foot Carolina Skiff 21LS refueled before taking his family on a nautical spin in the Atlantic Ocean. Turns out Justin is not alone in his choice of escape vehicle. Boats are yet another perfect toy for liberating the family from lockdown. Their sales like those of RVs and trailers are hot. “The place where I got my skiff normally has an inventory of forty boats on hand. The day I bought mine, there were only four left, “Justin explained.
STAYING CLOSE TO HOME
While owning a boat or an RV to get around this summer may not resonate with everyone—especially for many New Yorkers who do not even know how to drive—there are other ways to consider. Most of my friends are staying close to home preferring to shuttle up to the beaches in New Jersey or Long Island. Others are renting houses close by in bucolic upstate New York, Pennsylvania or Connecticut and nesting with their bubble of family and/or close friends.
According to Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University Medical Center, "During these difficult times, the need to find some way to escape and recharge is perhaps even more important than it had been in years past.” However, Dr. Griffin is quick to point out that some vacation options are safer than others. He recommends day trips as an easy and safe way to revive your spirit and still follow Covid-19 safety guidelines. Day trips are affordableplus you can drive your own car, pack your own food and sanitizing whips, and in a few hours find yourself in a totally different environment.
TAKING UNNECESSARY RISKS
Trips to visit parents and grandparents are also extremely popular this season. Not only are they a good way to satisfy our cravings for freedom but they also afford us the emotional need to reconnect with loved ones. Some families are renting houses in various parts of the country, then sequestering with their next of kin. I heard of one couple who rented three houses: one for themselves, and two others for their daughters and their adult children. Trouble is, a week before the long-awaited family vacation their 27-year-old granddaughter who lives In Florida decided to go to a bar with her boyfriend. Great mojitos but several days later she fell ill with Covid-19 as did her boyfriend. That was the end of the family vacation at least for her side of the family.
While taking a dream vacation may not be possible this year, at least we can think back on some of our past holidays as balm for our pent-up wanderlust. I canvassed several of my friends to find out about their favorite vacation recollections from their youth. Memories can be powerful assets so why not exploit them in these surreal times?
ANYONE WANT SOME ORANGEADE???
Jim Carle, my financial advisor, was one of six kids. As he explained it, vacations were rare other than visiting one set of grandparents who owned a property on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. One summer, however, the family visited his grandmother’s home in Deerfield Beach, Florida which included a stopover in Disneyworld. “I actually remember very little about Disneyworld, but the drive down with nine of us (including my parents, siblings and grandmother who had been visiting ‘up north’) in our family station wagon spread over two days is an important part of our family lore.” Jim and his brother commandeered the third row in their station wagon. From way in the back they were responsible for “providing orangeade refreshment to anyone who wanted it from the Coleman cooler that was also kept there.“
One of Jim’s family’s favorite stories involved his brother and backseat mate accidentally leaving the valve open “to leak five gallons worth of orangeade into the spare-tire wheel well which was directly under the third-row seat.” According to Jim, “All was reasonably fine until my Dad was forced to stop suddenly to avoid a collision, and then wanted to know what that ‘splashing sound’ was. Things in the car were relatively quiet for a while (maybe three states) afterwards. Travel bingo and ‘99 bottles of beer on the wall’ took a backseat of their own. Fortunately, there were no flat tires during the trip as a repair would have been a rather sticky business!”
A STAR IS BORN
Lifestyle marketer Joan Brower was raised in a family where travel was a favorite activity. As an only child, she was taken along on vacations and business trips to Europe, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and the U.S. “Throughout the 1950s and 60s, we traveled occasionally by car (a checkerboard Dodge); sometimes by cruise ship to the Caribbean or through the Greek Isles; but most often by air, using one family passport for the three of us.”
Of all their adventures, Joan’s favorite was a trip from NYC to Los Angeles in the late-1950s on a TWA prop plane. As she tells the story, “It included a stop in Las Vegas where, as a little girl with long black braids, I was identified by press agents for Jimmy Durante, the comedian affectionally called “The Schnozz” and his frequent sidekick and popular dancer, Ann Miller, as an ideal ‘extra’ for a publicity stunt there. Dressed in a buckskin outfit, I was asked to hand them 20 silver dollar coins, signifying the ‘purchase’ of Las Vegas from its original Nevada residents.”
But her breakthrough in show business did not stop there. When they arrived in Los Angeles her parents took her to a dinner show at the Coconut Grove Hotel where they were staying. As it turned out French crooner Maurice Chevalier who was performing at the hotel spotted young Joan in the audience. “He left the stage to sing to me his then-hit Thank Heaven for Little Girls from the popular film, Gigi."
ESCAPING THE WARTH OF YOUR BROTHER
Margaret Stern, veteran wine publicist, was raised in Rome so naturally, her holidays involved tooling around Europe. At seven she was sent to camp on Lake Annecy, France where she recalls the best thing about the holiday was being separated from her brother who used to beat her up. For three years starting at age eleven, she and her brother were sent to the International Rangers Camp in the village of Glion, up and down a funicular from Montreux, Switzerland where they went swimming in Lake Geneva. “The best thing about it, again, was that my brother was separated from me and could not beat me up in public.” As Margaret continued, “My last year, I had a crush, my first of innumerable, on an American boy from Frankfurt. We would sneak out, meet on the stairs after lights out and neck. I'm sure we were caught and that I was mortified. Thereafter, no more summer camps but I didn't give up the necking.”
IT’S AS BIG AS I REMEMBER
Isabel Sloane, a mother of two adult children and former Morgan Stanley Human Resources Executive, used to vacation in Nantucket with her parents and five siblings. Before she explained why the holiday was so magical to her as a pre-teen, she remarked with a half chuckle, “Now I know why my mother used to say it was a vacation for everyone but her. Mom had to do the packing for the entire family, cook most of our meals and plan our daily activities."
Isabel’s father was a lawyer. She and her family would stay in a large, stately house owned by one of her father’s partners. As she described it, everyone would pile into the car and head for the island a considerable distance away. Their summer abode was located on a slip of land with the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. Everything about Isabel's vacation by the water was paradise.
Later, as an adult, she and her fiancé and now husband, Drew Robbins, took a trip to Nantucket. Isabel was nostalgically curious to see if the house was still there. She worried she might be disappointed by her possibly embellished childhood recollections. Turns out she was not. “The house was huge and even more magnificent than I recalled.”
A 4,000 MILE ROADTRIP TO NATURE’S PARADISE
Jan Hazard, former food editor at Ladies Home Journal, remembers with great fondness her road trip from Syracuse, New York to Whitefish, Montana as a ten-year-old to see her maternal grandparents. Jan’s grandparents lived in Lewistown, MT. Her grandmother Ellen was legendary. When Ellen immigrated to America from Norway, she became one of the few female homesteaders owning 160 acres in the state. The trail blazer eventually sold her property and married John, a young local man who owned a successful construction company. John was a hard worker and rarely took vacations. However, one year he and Ellen rented a cabin on the lake at Whitefish. This coincided with a purchase of a new Oldsmobile. Being a frugal Scandinavian, whenever Jan’s grandfather replaced his car, he would pick it up at the manufacturer in Detroit. However, that particular year he sent his son, Trig, in his place.
Jan’s grandparents figured out that since Trig and his family—who joined him on the 1,300 mile trek from Lewiston to Detroit—might as well tact on another 400 plus miles to pick up Jan and her older sister Kate in Syracuse. Afterall, Trig was already heading towards the East coast!
So, Jan and Kate piled in the back seat of the new car and made an almost 2,000-mile trip across country to vacation with their grandparents. As Jan recalls it, one of the best parts of the road trip was being allowed to order anything she wanted off the restaurant menu. And she did. “I ate hamburgers, French fries and chocolate malts for breakfast, lunch and dinner!”
Jan also recollected being overwhelmed by the breathtaking beauty of Whitefish, located at the edge of Glacier National Park in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Jan lamented that “This was also the summer my sister Kate discovered boys although there wasn’t any reciprocation on their part, much to her dismay.”
When I asked Jan if she flew home at the end of her Whitefish holiday, she responded with a hearty laugh, “Our parents missed us so much they drove all the way from Syracuse to pick us up.” I imagine Jan wasn’t eating burgers and fries on the road trip back to New York State, however!
USING MEMORIES OF VACATIONS PAST
As we think back on our favorite vacations as youngsters and what made them uniquely enjoyable, whether the recollections are accurate is not the point. There is some therapeutic benefit, in my estimation, in remembering being in exotic places as well as zipping down the open U.S. highways on family road trips. Counting the Brylcreem billboard ads with your siblings, uncovering the beauty and wonder of nature, or even discovering the opposite sex, were part of summer’s hedonistic pleasures. Now as adults, even during the current unprecedented pandemic, we can re-experience the joys and wonderment of summertime just as we did as youngsters although certainly with less innocence. We just need to think outside the box to do so. Allow some of those vivid childhood vacation memories to filter back into your consciousness. Use the best of them to fuel your imagination on planning your vacation this year in 2020. It might turn out better than you ever expected.
Anyone wants some more s’mores???