Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to have a plan. Last month I had a plan for the two and half weeks I was taking off. Not being in front of a computer was the first part of the plan, but I also wanted to travel to Illinois to see my newest great nephew, the older great nephew, my nieces and my sister. Any sane person would have flown there, but I am increasingly uncomfortable about air travel, and I never really believe the planes have any right to stay up there, so I decided to drive. The plan was to spend only a few days in Illinois and then make a much longer driver to Key West. I want to see the Everglades before they are developed into a memory.

The trip started well. I had loaded up on books on tape from the library, including the classic Native Son, which I had never read. I decided at the last minute to dogleg into Indiana to see a favorite aunt.

Leaving Florida at dawn, I found myself in Kentucky by nightfall. I just love that. I breezed through four states in one day—Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky and I was only in the car for about seven hours and I don’t exceed the speed limit by much more than five miles per hour. My aunt lives in Evansville, Ind., which had been hit with 20 inches of snow the week before. The previous snowfall was reassuring to me, as it doesn’t often snow in southern Indiana. Snow was still on the ground, but the temperature was downright Florida-like.

By the middle of the next day, I was in Illinois and spent a couple of days with my youngest niece and her year old son, then traveled about an hour south to my sister’s home. That was a Monday and I planned to leave by Wednesday for Key West. Mother Nature had other plans—dumping a lot of snow in the region I was in and throwing in an ice storm to the south. I felt trapped. I’m not a skilled enough driver to just go off and assume all will be well on the interstate, so I stayed put for a couple of days, effectively giving up on seeing Key West this trip. By any standard, it was at least a three-day drive to the southernmost point in the United States from Illinois, and then it would be a two-day trip home. The time just didn’t add up if I were to have any time at all to investigate the region.

My sister decided to hitch a ride with me and the new plan was to make a casino tour of Mississippi starting with Tunica, perhaps going to Pearl River and ending up in Biloxi, a short hop from home. This is where I made my mistake—mingling with the masses during the cold and flu season. Somewhere out there, some kind soul shared viral pneumonia with me, commonly called community pneumonia. Isn’t that special?

The last days of my vacation were spent looking and feeling like a used tissue, taking drugs that robbed me of sleep, and getting winded walking from one room to another. I can see why this disease kills people and it isn’t the first time I’ve had it. I don’t seem to get colds like normal people. Oh no, let’s go for the king of the viruses—only the best for me.

It was the sleeplessness that aided and abetted me in getting out the last issue. Thankfully I work from home, because I certainly wouldn’t have gone out in the world looking and feeling as I did. While I didn’t have the strength, stamina, or I’ll admit it, the mental capacity, to work for long periods, as I was only sleeping in half-hour increments, it all came together more or less on time.

Next year, my plan is to have no plan. Can’t hurt.

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