Dream vacation grounded by pandemic

Oaklawn is about to have its single greatest day of racing Saturday with 14 races, including two Arkansas derbies.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson is prepared to open some of our state’s beautiful parks for Arkansans.

Isaiah Joe’s NBA Draft stock is climbing.

The Little Rock School District has revealed 28 of its graduates will continue their athletic careers at a variety of colleges.

That’s the sports news, and your trusty scribe is almost depressed.

Not like two weeks ago, when it felt like the only thing missing in my life was an ankle bracelet.

Now in the sixth week of working from home, I’ve run a gamut of emotions.

What I’m feeling today isn’t like last week, when I kept thinking about being more than 65 years old and male, prime targets for covid-19.

Today is different. Monica and I were supposed to be landing in Prague to start our dream vacation. One that took four years of planning and saving, and of revising our itinerary and saving some more.

Articles were read, new luggage bought as well as some clothes.

Monica, the wife, doesn’t subscribe to my theory of going on vacation with old clothes to leave behind, which makes more room for souvenirs.

Our trip was to start with a long flight from Chicago to Prague, with a short layover in Amsterdam, which is on our itinerary but it was cheaper to fly round trip to the Czech Republic.

We had rented a beautiful apartment in Prague for three days through Airbnb. It has a view of a historic church.

A short flight to Munich, Germany, and a visit to the Dachau concentration camp that was used during the Holocaust were planned for the fourth day.

The next day was a train ride to Heidelberg for three days, where we had reserved a car through Hertz, with a promise it would have an automatic transmission.

Years ago, renting a car in Florence, Italy, was a fiasco. First it was claimed the only reservation I had was for Florence, S.C., (that’s in the United States), but she did have a car for $88 (double my original price) and it was a stick shift, which I hadn’t driven in decades.

Long story short, we kept the car for four hours at a charge of $288, and there was a bit of arguing because suddenly no one spoke English.

Anyway, we were going to drive to the Black Forest and on the autobahn, because what guy doesn’t want to drive on the autobahn? Monica had a couple of other places to visit, including one that made cuckoo clocks.

From there, it was a train ride to Paris and a tour of Normandy. Then a walk to the Louvre and past the Eiffel Tower.

Then on to Amsterdam to tour, among other things, the Anne Frank house. Then three days later, a flight back to Prague and home.

Except for the Airbnb, we used points and money to reserve stays at Marriott properties.

Then came the coronavirus, and in late March the realization we weren’t going anywhere.

Marriott and Hertz canceled our reservations without question.

The Airbnb offered us a 48% refund or a full credit.

American Airlines offered a full credit, and gave us to the end of 2021 to use it.

Lufthansa Air said we didn’t qualify for a refund, but we could have a credit that’s good for 10 months. Jerks.

And easyJet sent a notice it would not be flying in April and to check back later for a credit, but we could book future travel after that time.

So instead of going on a the vacation of a lifetime, we are home and literally waiting to run out of milk so we have an excuse to mask up and go to the store.

We don’t practice social distancing; we are experts now.