Ahhh, 2020. There year we were supposed to go back to Cozumel, California, and possibly eastern Canada. The year we actually walked more hours than we drove and explored the world much closer to home.

This blog has been very quiet this year. Not that I intended it to be, but there just didn’t seem to be many adventures worth putting into words. As I looked back through photos from the past 10 months, I realized we’ve not exactly been doing nothing. Our adventures just look different this year than in the past.

We were scheduled to spend a week in Cozumel, Mexico in late March, two weeks after I began working from home. As the pandemic spiked in the US and across the world, we decided to postpone that trip until June…then September…now maybe 2021? The beach is my happy place, and being able to walk down 2 steps and into warm sand is heaven. Whenever that trip happens, I know it will be exactly what I need at exactly the right time.

Our explorations this year have been much closer to home, and many of them on foot. We’ve explored many trails and state parks in our local area. It was fun watching the leaves bud in March and April, followed by enjoying the shade of the leaf canopy through the summer months. Now we’re watching them turn color and float to the ground. I found a fun, easy app, AllTrails, that has provided us with an ever growing number of local hikes to check out.

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We did venture a little further to The Guideposts in rural northeast Georgia, (followed by a picnic and visits to two breweries in Athens, GA just because we could). The Guideposts are rather interesting, but not sure it’s somewhere we’ll venture to again or take visitors. It’s a bit of a drive for roughly 20 – 30 minutes to take in everything there is to see. It is near the Ty Cobb Museum for anyone who’s a fan of baseball.

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In September we decided to do an out of town trip, and we hit Nashville for a long weekend. We did a bit of the Tennessee Whiskey Trail on our drive there, stopping at Chattanooga Whiskey and George Dickel Distilleries. We stayed at a hotel near Music Row and joined the crowd on Friday night to hear live music. We didn’t stay out long as it was getting crowded, and neither of us were feeling really comfortable. Saturday we opted to walk over toward Vanderbilt University and the Parthenon. Centennial Park, where the Parthenon is located, is undergoing a major renovation, and it appeared to be closed. We were rather happy to find as we walked around the last side of the building that it was open. And we beat the crowd for the day! The Parthenon is the only full size replica in the world, including the statue of Athena.

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From there we walked back toward the hotel and explored Marathon Village. Nashville was once home to Marathon Motors Company. The building is now converted to a series of small shops, but old machinery from the factory is displayed along the hallways. Really worth checking out if you like nostalgia and old cars.

We may have driven to Nashville and home, but we walked everywhere until it was time to leave!

We’ve (mostly me) made several trips to east central Illinois to check in on Mom. Not sure these count as adventures, but it’s always a fun visit. We’ve ‘walked’ down memory lane many times during each visit. And I’m not sure whether it’s a good thing or not that I pretty much know every rest area between here and there on both sides of the highway. We’ll be taking one final trip north for 2020, then the weather will keep us home for a few months.

Here’s hoping the world becomes safer and saner, and travel becomes more possible in the coming year. I miss the open road and discovering new places along the way. Until then, I guess my feet will need to have to continue to help me explore new places close to home.

(And note to self, every now and then when you feel you haven’t done enough exploring, scroll through your photos for a reminder of all you have done in the craziness that is 2020.)