When I last wrote, I was scrambling towards a five-day vacation, trying to keep my head on straight. Well, I made it. Despite deadlines and technology issues, I managed to get my stuff done and get out of town. Dave and I went to Breckenridge and had the best, most head-clearing time I could have imagined.

The travel was somewhat stressful. It was our first venture on an airplane since COVID-19 happened. In this pandemic, we have spent very little time in confined spaces with others, so an airplane felt strange. But we masked up and appreciated the empty middle seats and mostly kept to ourselves, and it was fine. We got there and back without incident.

Though the travel was stressful, being there was beyond amazing. My niece went with us, so we had some sweet time with her before she ventured off to her own experience. We wandered the sweet little towns of Breckenridge and Frisco. We visited a local church and were part of a beautiful (and cold) service outdoors on a Sunday morning. We did two gorgeous hikes (with some trail running mixed in), one of which felt a bit treacherous when we lost the trail and had to find our way back. And when we weren’t hiking, we ran a recreational path between the two towns.

In the evenings, we stayed home. We played cribbage. We watched Cobra Kai. We read and wrote. We cooked, and Dave even grilled a bit.

It was mostly a change of scenery, which is exactly what we needed after months of being largely at home. But the trip was also a bit social in unexpected ways. We had more time with my niece than we expected. At church, we met a woman who had moved to Breckenridge from Austin, which gave us an easy connection with her. Later in our time there, we met up again with her and her husband for a visit. We also connected with Dave’s cousin and her family. We loved that time with family and new friends smattered among our time alone in the woods.

Everything about this trip felt affirming. Our time together. Our time in church. Our time with both family and friends. We experienced a great deal of ease along the way. I was reminded how healthy it is to go somewhere where you can turn off all the stress and the noise and just be.

Dave and I have decided that Breckenridge needs to be an annual adventure for us. We know we barely scraped the surface of what that community has to offer, so we would like to go back again and again to see more and rejuvenate in this beautiful place on a regular basis.