Traveling (And Finding Ideas) In The Time Of Corona

I should go on the road more often. Getting out of one’s comfort zone is the best way for a writer to get fresh perspectives and glean new ideas.

It happened to me last week when my husband Joe and I had to get in our car and drive the 1,350 miles between Palm Beach County and our home on the East End of Long Island. I detest traveling by car, but Southwest cancelled two direct flights on us  (and rebooked us on flights through Baltimore — a trip of eight hours instead of the regular 2hours 40 minutes!!!!!)

Okay, I thought. Let’s make the best of it. At least, this way I’ll get to see Savannah — something that’s been on my To Do list since I read John Berendt’s  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Driving in the Time of Corona

Finding a hotel in Savannah, however, proved to be a major headache. Three of the four hotels I contacted were already closed down. Planters Inn, where I really wanted to stay, was open, but had no room service and parking only on the street – something to be avoided when you’re hauling all your worldly possessions (that is, most recent novel drafts and notes) with you.

The Hyatt Regency had no room service either, and no housekeeping, but it had a private parking garage and a view of the mighty Savannah River. The container ships gliding out to sea seemed terrifyingly close, and as they came around the bend in the river looked like they were heading straight for the hotel!

In one of those “what if” moments that fiction writers often have, I imagined a scene where the huge cargo ship just kept steaming towards our window rather than righting its course around that bend. But, don’t ask me “why” or “who” or how it was going to happen. I only got as far as picturing the scene.

Sitting by the window with Joe as we munched on the chicken rolls I’d had the foresight to prepare and pack in a cooler (along with a bottle of wine and corkscrew) I mentioned that it would make a great opening scene in a Die Hard-type movie.

“Wouldn’t be so great for the guests,” commented my kind-hearted husband, missing the point entirely as he sipped his wine from a plastic cup.

Ugh! plastic cups. And, ugh! Tiny little bottles of shampoo and conditioner with print so small you can’t tell which is which without reaching out of the shower for your glasses.

Fast Tour of Savannah

And, as for my big plans for touring Savannah? Hubby cut that idea short in his eagerness to get back on the road. I was allowed one stop — outside one of the spectacular Savannah mansions in the historic district across from Forsyth Park. The house on Whitaker (seen above through the branches of hanging Spanish moss for which the city is famous) was once owned by the grandmother of my friend and tennis partner, Pam McIver.

On To Historic Fredericksburg

My hopes of seeing anything of historic Fredericksburg (our second-night stop) were also dashed when we found that the only hotel open close enough to the highway was located in a modern, brightly-lit shopping mall! By the time we’d hauled our own bags up to the room, I was too tired to google directions to any historic sites in and around town.

So, the real downside of our road trip?  I discovered I am no longer the same adventurous woman who traveled alone across this country on a Greyhound bus a few decades ago.

Almost Home

On the bright side: It turns out that my 83-year old husband who often describes himself as “old and frail” but who singlehandedly drove the entire way home, is, on the contrary, made of much sterner stuff than I am.