What are your future travel plans?
My future travel plans?! Would you also like my address and code to my alarm system?! With that said, I won’t go into specifics about any itineraries that are coming up. But just know, once this summer program that I supervise ends in the middle of August, I have plans! Lots of people at work are taking their vacations in the summer, as is customary, but I’m pretty excited that I can travel in the fall. It’s super hard and stressful to take any time off in the summer with the job I have. Absolutely not complaining though! This is just one of those changes that I knew was coming when I left my job as an educator. I love how this particular change feels!
I do have some impromptu travel plans for this weekend. I’m planning a day trip to the beach with two of my online knitting friends. I have mentioned them in posts before. I belong to a group of knitters/crocheters…yarn people, and most of our interactions are online in the message board style forum we’re in.
These are real people though. Every year since 2012, I think it was, we have done a “camp”. We basically pick a spot in the United States, rent an air b-n-b and spend four days and three nights sitting around knitting, playing games, visiting yarn stores, chatting, cooking, etc. It’s like a summer camp for adults…who make things with yarn. There are usually about 20 people that go every year. The inaugural year there were 26. We come from all over the United States and even Canada. Our online group has people from all over the world…Italy, New Zealand, etc. But for these camps, they are always in the U.S. and we have recently started alternating which coast we meet on. It’s typically been the east coast, which are the camps I’ve attended. But this year we are expanding out to the Pacific Northwest. I opted not to go this year. I’d like to plan a trip with my husband for the vacation time I have instead.
It’s always a lot of fun and a great opportunity to spend time with these friends in “real” life. Last year was especially important for me to go because this group of people cheered me on as I made my exit from my toxic job. They knew the real reason I left. In fact, they saw it coming for years prior to my actual last day. I’ve been a member of this group since 2008 I believe. It was important for me to hang out with these people because of the immense amount of support they had given me throughout it all.
Here’s our group picture from last year. We took a front-facing one, but the one that we shared online is the one below. Some of our group members didn’t want their faces/real identities shared online. You can tell just how wide ranging our ages are by our hair alone. Last year was in Syracuse, New York.
While I am not going to camp this year, I am meeting with two of the ladies (and one of the men—one of their husbands) in this picture this weekend. One of them has rented a house at a beach that is near to myself and another group member. It’s about a 2.5-3 hour drive for both of us to get to this beach, but we’re going to do it. It will be just a small handful of us, but that’s still wonderful. Like I said, these are not just “online” friends. We are actual friends. And whenever we get the chance, if one of us happens to be in the area of another member, we make plans to meet up for the day. So that’s what we’re doing this weekend. On Sunday to be exact, which would usually give me heart palpitations given that the next day is a work day. I never liked going on day trips or doing something big the day before going back to work. Almost like I needed a buffer day between the weekend and the start of the next week. I don’t need that anymore. My job is different now. For that, I’m glad. Spontaneous opportunities like this to meet up with my online knitting friends don’t come up very often. But when they do, I’m all for it!
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