Notes from my Knapsack 3-31-22

Notes from my Knapsack 3-31-22
Jeff Gill

Going on a trip, returning home
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Spring break is back after a two year hiatus, and if my social media is any guide, there's a great deal of traveling going on.

As it turns out, I've traveled a great deal through COVID times, mostly back and forth to a single house in the Indianapolis suburbs. I can't account for supply chain problems, but I'd assure you that if I-70 is any guide, the trucks have not stopped running, and that's in both directions.

Outside of the "resort" (as my wife and I joke in our texts, about arriving at "the resort" where there's no tipping, but the laundry & housekeeping is definitely self-service) we have been making pre-dawn runs to stock up when there's few others at the stores, and mostly otherwise going to hospitals where masking and precautions are still considered reasonable, given that (unless you're a patient's escort) most of those arriving are in a risk category.

To be honest, we were never world travelers, unless you count a lap or two of EPCOT. We had hopes. And online, there are some interesting options if you can't travel, but would like to engage in a little creative self-distraction.

Which is how I've become a regular pedestrian in Paris, with a few ventures in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Google Street View is a pleasant way to meander around a strange place, and while I can't test this out anytime soon, I have a definite sense that if you dropped me off by taxi from the airport in downtown Anyoftheabove, I could get around at least a bit to places I hope to see in person some fine day.

It started with some professional reasons to check out addresses before I drove to the location, all here locally, and I found that a quick scout-around online could help me do what I needed to do in person later. Yes, things can change a year or two or four later, but in general it's a useful lay of the land. And then I retraced some steps in midtown & downtown Manhattan through my laptop, and developed a sense of what reality looks like versus the admittedly limited window of my computer screen.

One fun break I've taken a few times in a moment of stress: walking the embankments of the Seine in Paris, or the Thames in London. Just type in the city, click the map on the right that is a usual search option, then zoom into a riverbank until [plop] you leave the aerial view to a click-by-click, one arrow at a time, online opportunity to wander past Notre Dame or Parliament. Like most computer games, there are limits to how far you can go: it's not an "open world" by a long shot. But I think of what touristing I've done in my life, and how often I end up bustling from one place to the next, not seeing much or as much in between as I might have. This ain't bad, I have to say.

April in Paris, anyone? I think we have some ripples of virus still to endure for another year or two, and I've still got a person to be cautious on behalf of, so it's going to be one click at a time for a while yet.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not been everywhere, man. Tell him where you've virtually been at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.