Virtual vacation, going home: Days 14 & 15

This will be short but a necessary post if we are to obtain closure. Day 14 took us down the interstates to Beckley, WV, where we spent our first night out. For variety’s sake, I reserved a room at “Tru by Hilton” instead of the Hampton Inn where we had lodged on Day 1. If you’re over the age of 50 and like things such as closets, drawers, and enough desk space to plop down all your electronics, I would steer you away from this brand. Similar to Marriott’s Aloft, it appeals mostly to 20- and 30-somethings who thought the dorm aesthetic in college “was really rad” or whatever I should have inserted here to show I’m not too far over the hill to know (or care).

Before we checked in, we dropped by the Tamarack Marketplace. We had visited in 2010 when I said, “hey, let’s explore West Virginia” and even though that vacation offered a very mixed bag indeed, I still managed to be surprised when we circumambulated the center (it’s more or less a circle): “That’s it?” We revisited in 2023 because we thought, “hey, we probably were just jaded by the end of a vacation. It couldn’t have been that boring.” It was, exemplified by my uttering the same comment I had the first time: “hey, I think we’ve seen this already. Have we really walked the whole thing?” If you would like to pay $23-25 for a semi-unique pottery coffee cup or hundreds/thousands of dollars for art, then this is your place. Even the snacks get priced as if they’re works of art.

We checked the dry-erase board of recommended restaurants–yeah, that’s how Tru does it–and found an acceptable Italian place close to our lodging.

I’d entertained the idea we would stop by the New River Gorge National Park a second time on Day 15, but the idea of getting home in the early evening didn’t appeal to us. When you’re headed home, most of the time you just want to get there. We arrived around 2 p.m., cracked beers while we unloaded: luggage-direct-to-laundry hamper; ice chests disgorging their contents to the beer fridge; and all the miscellaneous crap which creeps out of your luggage and hides in various corners of the car over the two weeks you’re on the road. We joined our good friends from around the block and went out to a better dinner than we had enjoyed in three days.

Returning from a vacation satisfies just like leaving. The familiar looks slightly less so, but the routines comfort in ways hotels cannot provide. Cats cling like two-year-olds demanding you never leave again. You revel in about ten times the square footage you’ve had for the previous two weeks. For me, I look forward to the next day because the day after returning is Re-entry Day, nearly as good as the vacation itself. One gets normalized again, processes multiple loads of laundry, considers midday naps, starts drinking as if it’s still vacation, catches up on all the videos cached during one’s absence, and pulls leftovers from the freezer. It’s like a stay-cation; it’s transition; it’s re-entry. Here we go again.