BRING A LOOFAH

Getting away from it all has strange meaning these days. The pandemic limits myriad recreational travel options, or at least it should. We never truly imagined taking a “vacation” during COVID, but we definitely needed a significant break. And, we had two important reasons to do it — one happy, one sad. So, how do you go about doing it safely?

One way is to take a mere 1-hour car trip north-ish from Houston to a secluded woodland Getaway. With the kids happily off to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, we packed our bags, bought some delightful groceries, made a quick stop at the Colombia outlet store and arrived at our minimalist glamping cabinette — just the three of us! Yes, you can bring your doggos, and the majestic Lady trotted right up with us.

So here’s the sad reason: late last year, Lady was diagnosed with lymphoma. She is undergoing treatment and is responding well. She’s happy and often hungry. She’s more tired these days, but she’s definitely in good spirits. Our understanding of veterinary oncology, specifically chemotherapy treatment, is the drugs to not have the same heavy side effects on dogs. Life expectancy, however, is much shorter. 2021 likely will be the last year Lady is with us, so a bit of glamping (also) is just what the doctor ordered. She stretched out on a nice comfy bed and ate campfire food with us. She enjoyed our misty nature walk and got to eat so much grass, which oddly is one of her favorite things to do. This year will be a hugs loving hug for our Lady Lay. This trip was a great way to start.

Now the happy reason, whew! We celebrated Nicholas’ 43 birthday. Yeah, 43! We also celebrated us, the two of us. It was not an easy year, by far. And we suspect 2021 will not be any easier. But Nicholas and I have each other. Taking a small break to remind ourselves not only of what that really means, but how wonderful it is, was special to us. This quickly became our favorite trip together. We did NOTHING! We had no agenda. The No. 1 item on our list was to relax. We read, wrote, took many many photographs, took a great hike, sat around several beautifully constructed campfires … Nicholas cooked amazing food (steak, lobster and charcuterie), and we ate and breathed and were reminded of why we started this family in the first place.

What did we learn? Bring a loofah. It’s the only thing Getaway neither provides nor instructs you to bring. So, there you have it, 2021. We’re ready (maybe), but we will be damn well scrubbed!