Before I go into my planned trip, I’m happy to say that my permanent pass for the Air Force Base is ready and I’ll be picking it up in the next day or two.
Secondly, I’m going to say, I love working for Presbyterian. Despite losing money by the elimination of elective surgeries during the COVID crisis, they’ve continued to pay all of their employees even if there’s no work for them (caveats included though.)
As they continue to lose money yet pay their employees, they’ve made a decision to help offset the losses. They’ve asked all employees to take 9 days of PTO through June and July.
I already had the couple days requested for our upcoming trip to Crested Butte, and I had tacked on a couple more days to help Brandy’s mom load her trailer when she comes back to Albuquerque, but that still leaves me with five days I have to take before the end of July.
Before I met Brandy, I had been planning a trip to Illinois to visit my friends David and Veronica and catch a Dodgers game at Wrigley. The Dodgers would be there near the end of August so I was planning a trip to see them on August 22.
And then came COVID. The baseball season is now in jeopardy. There’s talk they may begin playing games in July, but they may be playing to empty stadiums with no audience allowed, or even if they did allow fans in the stands, there’s no telling what the schedule is going to look like. So it looks like my first visit to Wrigley is a no-go, at least for this year.
I still would like to visit David and Veronica though, and since I still have five days of PTO to schedule before July, why not move my trip out there to July? I got in touch with Veronica who said she’d ask for the time off. She should find out soon if that request has been granted. In the meantime, my PTO request is in and is in all likelihood already approved.
I’m very excited to visit a state I’ve never been to, and to see my friends again, and while we’re out there, we’ll swing by and visit Brandy’s mom in Iowa, so that will be a second state I’ll visit on the trip! And if you want to count the likely stop in Oklahoma on night one, we can count as a third! My word, what a trip this will be!
Stay tuned for more!
-Phil