Travel in the age of Covid

[CarolfromTX]

So Dave and I spent the last few days on South Padre Island. We went birding with some dear friends. We picked a hotel that we’ve stayed at before. Unfortunately the hotel was taking the lack of winter Texans as an opportunity to remodel. So no bar, and no restaurant. When we went to our room, there was a seal on it. Remember those strips that tacky motels would put on the toilet seats? “Sanitized for your protection.” Yeah, it was like that. We were told upon check in that there would be no daily maid service. So we had to make our bed, take out our trash, fetch anything we needed like toilet paper and coffee refills from housekeeping. It was not exactly a luxury experience. And the free breakfast took forever since it was no longer self serve. And it was cold. We ate breakfast out thereafter.

Birding was easy. Outdoors, not many people. But the State Parks have curtailed their hours and we had to readjust our schedule a couple times. We never had a bad meal except breakfast the first day. Masks required inside. The restaurants we chose all had outdoor seating, except for the breakfast place, so that was good. And the weather was gorgeous.

And we got to see dear friends and visit with them. It was wonderful. Hadn’t seen them in almost a year. We shared experiences and wine. Sigh. I want to be able to travel again like the old days.

 

[rgp]

So Dave and I spent the last few days on South Padre Island. We went birding with some dear friends. We picked a hotel that we’ve stayed at before. Unfortunately the hotel was taking the lack of winter Texans as an opportunity to remodel. So no bar, and no restaurant. When we went to our room, there was a seal on it. Remember those strips that tacky motels would put on the toilet seats? “Sanitized for your protection.” Yeah, it was like that. We were told upon check in that there would be no daily maid service. So we had to make our bed, take out our trash, fetch anything we needed like toilet paper and coffee refills from housekeeping. It was not exactly a luxury experience. And the free breakfast took forever since it was no longer self serve. And it was cold. We ate breakfast out thereafter.

Birding was easy. Outdoors, not many people. But the State Parks have curtailed their hours and we had to readjust our schedule a couple times. We never had a bad meal except breakfast the first day. Masks required inside. The restaurants we chose all had outdoor seating, except for the breakfast place, so that was good. And the weather was gorgeous.

And we got to see dear friends and visit with them. It was wonderful. Hadn’t seen them in almost a year. We shared experiences and wine. Sigh. I want to be able to travel again like the old days.

Hope the hotel at least gave a decent discount ? since it became do-it-yourself ?

 

[CarolfromTX]

Yeah it was very reasonable. And to be honest, SPI was reasonably busy. Not as busy in the “before times,” but busy enough. The front desk person told us they were full on the weekends.