Tomorrow is officially Groundhog Day in the United States when a groundhog is supposed to determine whether or not winter is going to last longer based on whether the groundhog casts a shadow. The term has also become to represent the notion of every day repeating itself over and over without changing. Ever since the pandemic first caused the world to shut down last March, almost a year ago at this point, we have felt as if we’ve been trapped in our version of Groundhog Day where we keep hoping to be able to travel once again. Depending on where you are located, your ability to travel might be more open than other places. For us, although we can travel within the United States, traveling outside of the United States hasn’t been an option unless we are willing to quarantine for a while after arriving in a location. With the costs and time associated with traveling, we’ve basically been in a constant holding pattern when it comes to travel. (We don’t have photographs of groundhogs, so these other cute animals will have to do.)

We are optimistic that things are going to improve and, as of right now, we are hoping to take our first trip out of the country at the end of April to Portugal. Assuming that we are able to travel, it will have been a year since we cancelled our trip to Turkey last year. Last March, we didn’t think things would last long and were originally hopeful not to cancel our trip. Then we thought that things would be better by October and when that didn’t occur, we were hopeful for December. Each time it seemed like things were getting better, the world would do another revolution only for us to wake up and feel like it was the same as it was back in the beginning. Let’s hope that the groundhog predicts the lack of travel will come to an end early, regardless of whether there will be six more weeks of winter.