Saw the first headline about the upcoming fireworks shortage. (We’ve got two weeks to set off a series of stories and scavenger hunts.) But if you can’t find some, come on over. Most assuredly our neighbor bought them all.

We sat in the backyard last year and watched, which was much better than having to find the perfect spot and a parking spot, besides.

He had four false finales last year.

(Update: A week later, at the grocery store, I noted they’re selling sparklers on the end caps nearest cashiers. I think we’ll be fine.)

Anyway, we’re on the road. The Yankee has booked us a trip to I-know-not-where. It’s a long weekend, anniversary getaway. She booked it and said something about it being a surprise and we decided to play that out, just to see how it went. She told me what days to take off from work, what to pack and all of that.

I knew we were going to the airport, and the weather, milder than we’ve been experiencing, was the only clue I had. So I figured Pacific Northwest or Maine.

Turns out that Maine was a possibility, but we went another direction. We made it to the pay-to-park lot, to the airport, through security and down to the terminal and I still knew nothing. Out of habit I looked up at the sign at the gate and saw our connection was in Detroit.

I know it’s not Canada, because she didn’t tell me to get my passport. She could have just grabbed my passport. But also, there are still those border-crossing issues related to the coronavirus.

This is, by the way, our first flight since who knows when. Masks are still required in airports and airplanes, but don’t count the number of noses you see, it’s demoralizing. We were doing an over/under and realized, within 10 minutes or so, that we set the number far, far, faaaaar too low. At one point in Detroit I started wondering aloud, for the benefit of the ill-fitting mask wearers around me, how it was that people managed to put their pants on.

It’s really not that much different, I said, a bit of fabric worn over parts of the body that society has deemed, ya know, necessary.

No one answered me. No one ever answers those.

Aside from a few car-borne family visits this is also one of the very first times we’ve been anywhere that wasn’t at least somewhat necessary. And we have lived and worked in something of a bubble. Be it by institutional mandate or county orders or people’s concern, people we’ve encountered have generally taken great care to take great care. Today’s trips through the airports, then, have been an eye-opening “how the other half live” experience.

Anyway, in Detroit I carefully avoided the sign at the gate. No idea where we were headed next. We got on the plane and the flight attendant did the old welcome aboard speech — still the same spiel, even after that long layoff — and before my lovely bride could distract me (She went with a very loud “SHHHSHHHSHHSHHH!!!!”) I heard the guy say we were heading to Seattle.

Which, really, at some point you have to find out. And while I didn’t want to set my expectations for one place or another, the heat index in Indiana was 105 degrees today. We’ve gone the right direction, is what I’m saying.

Even still, that’s not the actual destination. We were to take a shuttle to an airport hotel tonight. It never showed up, so we hailed an Uber. Tomorrow we’ll rent a car and drive a few hours away. The mystery persists.