My (almost) Craziest Travel Idea Ever!
In all the trips I’ve done in my life, this one was the craziest idea. It was inspired in part by a line from one of my favorite movie songs,
“The Other Side” from The Greatest Showman:
“And if it’s crazy, live a little crazy“
So, I had some inspiration for this crazy idea – I just needed some confirmation, per se, to actually follow through with planning it.
I wrote about my “Rule of Three” principle in my book –
seeing, or hearing three things that point me in the direction of making a certain decision or having three different people basically tell me the same thing. In this case, it was three things that happened:
During a Friday morning meeting at a local coffee shop, “Your Song” from Moulin Rouge was playing. Now, I’ve been meeting a group of friends almost every Friday morning in this coffee shop for several months now and I’ve never heard this played there before. Then, I saw this note encouragement from Kasey Jones, who I follow on Substack: The part that stood out for me was “When in doubt, do it: take the trip”
I recognized that hearing “Your Song” from Moulin Rouge (which is one of my favorites by the way!) AND seeing this note was 2 of the 3 signs. I knew that I would regret that I didn’t at least make an effort to schedule and go on this trip, regardless of how crazy it sounded.
So, I sought out a third sign – which I don’t usually do but in this case, I felt like the odds were working in my favor.
There was an early morning flight and an evening flight that worked out with my schedule AND I had enough airline miles that the flight was only $11.80 round trip! There was a seat where I like to sit in the theater that was available. I had been able to clear my schedule for the day, and everything had aligned just right that this crazy idea was actually going to work!
I booked all the tickets and set out to prepare for a Day Trip to the City!
ITINERARY:
Early morning flight out, arrive in the Theater District by 1030am.
1030am-1:30pm FREE time in the City – Brunch and touring the Museum of Broadway
2pm-5pm: Moulin Rouge and Stage Door
5pm – head back to the airport to board my flight back home.
It was going to be about an 18-hour day – sure, I’d probably fall asleep on the flight home, and I knew I’d be tired the next day, but it would so be the worth it!
Remember, the whole point of the trip was to see Boy George in Moulin Rouge.
The music of the 80’s – including Culture Club – is one of my favorite decades of music and Moulin Rouge is one of my favorite musicals! And, of course, NYC is one of my favorite travel destinations! Although Moulin Rouge is on a continuous run at the Al Herschfeld Theater, Boy George is only starring for a limited time, through May 25th, and the only way I could make it work to go was to do a day trip. Believe me, I’ve been trying for months to figure out a way to get to NYC to see this and nothing has been working out just right. I’ve learned through years of traveling to Elton concerts that if it’s not working out for me to go, it just wasn’t meant for me to go.
I had made peace with not being able to make it work to go and then had this crazy idea for a day trip and decided to give it a try –
Spoiler alert: As maybe you picked up from the title, I should be writing this post sitting at the gate of my home airport waiting for my early morning flight to NYC. I’ve been so excited about this trip since I made the decision a few weeks ago to give it a try – this crazy idea that I had. Instead, I’m writing this from home.
In fact, I almost didn’t write this post to share this story. I could have easily just put a post on social media for this week that said, “No new blog post this week, please catch up on one you haven’t read yet” and highlighted some of my least or most read blog posts.
But I decided to share the story because there’s some really important life lessons here and well, that’s what I do:
Share life lessons through storytelling!
Five days ago, I thought I was getting a cold, and I did everything I know to do to fight it off, holistic treatments as well as OTC medicines. By day three, I was feeling worse and went to the doctor. The Covid and Flu tests were negative, and it was determined that I have a sinus infection.
A stupid, stupid sinus infection!!!????
I got a prescription for an antibiotic and yes, I’m feeling a little bit better but not “18-hour travel day better”. Yesterday, I cancelled my flights, and I was able to move my Moulin Rouge ticket to a different date in the fall.
I knew as soon as the doctor told me what it was that I couldn’t go on my trip. I just had a feeling that I shouldn’t go. Could I have sucked it up, talked to the doctor about how to mediate my symptoms while I traveled? Yes, yes, I could have. In fact, I did discuss it with her and even while I was discussing it with her, I heard the voice in my head say, “You aren’t going.”
I knew I wasn’t going because I had already learned this lesson:
IT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA TO TRAVEL WHEN I AM MEDICALLY IMPAIRED.
Here’s the backstory of how I learned this lesson which also happened three years ago this month:
I had flown to Hershey, PA for my 50th Elton John concert.
When I returned home, I was awakened in the middle of the night with severe, sharp pains in my lower back. Nothing I did remediated the pain, so I went to the doctor.
The good news is that I did not have a kidney stone.
The bad news is that I had sciatica. What? I thought sciatica was just for “old people” – well, at the time I was 48 years old so it’s NOT just for old people.
Do you know what the treatment is for Sciatica?
Well, it mostly involves rest. It certainly does not involve more travel.
Do you know what I had planned? more travel
I arrived home from Hershey, PA on April 14th. I think now it was maybe the 16th or 17th that I went to the doctor. I was leaving on April 19th to start a 7-day travel adventure, seeing 4 concerts in 4 different cities involving driving and flights.
It was an aggressive travel schedule. I’ve done aggressive travel schedules before for Elton concerts, but not while also having sciatica. The odds of my sciatica healing 100% before I left on my trip were not good.
At the time, it wasn’t even an option for me NOT to go to the concerts – aside from the excruciating pain, I felt great! (haha). So, I told my doctor my plan and she said something like, “I’m going to advise you not to go, but if you have to go, here’s a plan to mediate the symptoms.” That plan involved knowing the maximum amount of alternating Tylenol and Advil that I could take, using air activated heating pads that had band-aid like adhesive I could stick on my lower back, hydrating as much as I could and generally just trying my best to take care of myself. In this case, I was meeting up with and traveling with friends, so I knew I’d have other people around to help me as needed.
So, yes, I went to concerts 51, 52, 53 and 54.
Greensboro, NC > Columbia, SC > Jacksonville, FL > Tampa, FL.
I drove to Greensboro, went to the concert that night, got up the next morning and drove to Columbia, SC went to that concert, then got up and drove to my home airport, flew to Jacksonville, went to the concert, got up the next morning and rode with friends to Tampa, went to that concert then got up the next morning and flew home.
And yes, by the time I got to the Florida concerts, I was literally running on adrenaline and caffeine. I was so tired and hurting that I almost didn’t go to the Tampa concert – I seriously had considered it but ultimately rallied and went because I was pursuing something greater than myself, my dream to meet Elton John.
I should also note, that oddly enough, it didn’t hurt to stand. My friends were awesome at checking on me and making sure I ate and did whatever they could to help me feel better.
By the time I got back to my home airport, I went straight from there to the chiropractor (I was already an established patient at this point) and when I sat down to fill out the form on the iPad, I literally couldn’t comprehend the words on the form that I had read and filled out so many times before –
the executive functioning of my brain had had enough.
Seeing that I was “zoned out” a bit, the staff member at the chiropractor’s office said something to me, and I simply held up the iPad and said, “I hurt everywhere” and she completed the online form for me.
By the time I got home, I was barely functioning. I was literally breathing, eating and sleeping. I still had the pain from the sciatica but now this is compounded by the aftermath of the rise and crash of the adrenaline cycle and the hectic travel schedule. The part of the brain that intakes and processes information – that executive functioning part – was basically nonexistent. My family would learn that if they asked me a question, I needed more than a few seconds to process and then answer – that process just wasn’t quick. I would often ask for them to repeat themselves because my brain was operating like on outdated version of an IOS operating system – sluggish, glitchy and slow.
And that scared me. I had pushed my brain and my body to the absolute limit – well, over the limit – of capability.
I made a promise to myself that I would never, ever do that again. To this day, I have ZERO regrets of making those trips while I had sciatica, but I learned a very, very important life lesson:
Listen to your body. Your body knows when it’s had enough and if you don’t give it a break, it has a way of shutting down to only manage the very basics of life: keeping you alive.
It would take me almost an entire month to fully recover from that trip. Every day, I did only what I was required to do for my business (I own/operate a pet sitting business). I rested otherwise and took care of myself to heal, mentally and physically. The sciatica eventually healed, and my brain returned back to optimally processing speed, but it took a long time.
So now, let’s get back to the story the Day Trip to NYC –
I had THOSE lessons to apply to THIS situation because what is the point of learning lessons if they aren’t applied to new situations, right?
Of course, I absolutely could have pushed myself to go to NYC for the day and I would have rallied, caffeinated and had the adrenaline kick in and enjoyed my day but the aftermath of that is something I did not want to go through again – I knew that if I went forward with the trip it would only make me feel worse, not better. And, as I spend time this morning – the day after when my trip should have been – I’m glad I made the decision to stay home. I just know that going would have made my medical impairment worse instead of better. I’m a few years older and wiser now and while, yes, I’m very disappointed I couldn’t go, I have no regrets about staying home.
Life Lesson: Two things can be true, disappointment in missing an event and contentedness that I made the right decision in missing the event.
In this case, my only driving force to go to see Moulin Rouge was because Boy George was starring in it and that would be awesome to see! But I’m not pursuing a dream to meet him, I’m not pursuing something greater than myself this time and I’m not willing to take the risk with my health to go –
this time, it just wasn’t worth the risk.
The good news is that I will see Moulin Rouge, albeit without Boy George, on my trip to NYC in the fall. I only had to pay a $12 fee to move my ticket to an alternate date and the same seat I had so diligently researched before was available. I was able to get my flight miles reinstated and have already booked my flights for my fall trip – still for just $11.80 round trip. Although I’m disappointed that this trip didn’t work out, I’ve made peace with the situation. This was definitely a situation that was beyond my control.
So, a few life lessons here:
If there’s something you really want to do, or someplace you really want to go – find a way to make it happen. There’s always a way, you just have to figure out the time, money and logistics. Make sure you have no regrets about missing out on something that’s really important to you.
Listen to Your Body: This is a lesson I learned the hard way and sometimes continue to learn it but it’s an important lesson. If you don’t take care of your body, your body has a way of telling you it’s had enough.
Make peace with the situation. I’ll never understand why NOW the time was the Universe decided I needed to have a sinus infection. I made it through the entire winter with no illness, and I can’t remember a time where I’ve ever had a sinus infection. I may never know the reason why I wasn’t meant to go on this trip, but I definitely wasn’t meant to go. This is a situation that is beyond my control, and I just have to accept that.
I can honestly say that I have no regrets for cancelling the trip. Yes, disappointed that it didn’t work out, but I know I made the right decision. For today, which is now my day off instead of a travel day, I literally have nothing on my schedule – and yes, the temptation is great to fill my day with “all the things” but I will take the opportunity to have a rare “day off” and I will rest. I have plenty of streaming service shows to catch up on and our living room couch is a great spot for a nap.
Lessons learned, this is exactly what I needed to be doing.