“Foster, are you up?”

I was pretty sure Foster was ignoring me. I could hear him snoring, but it sounded kind of fake. “Fos,” I repeated. “Are you up?”“I am now,” came the somewhat disgruntled reply. “What?”Then he sat up and looked at me. “Hey,” he said, puzzled. “How did we get in the guest room? Weren’t we just in the bedroom?” I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied, “that’s where we fell asleep, anyway. Who knows how this kind of stuff happens!”“Your guess is as good as mine,” he replied. “So what did you wake me up for?” “Well,” I began. “Earlier I happened to notice Mom has a Zazzle cup with a picture of us on it.  It’s from when we went to Paris to see the Louvre.  Wouldn’t it be fun to go on another adventure like that?”Foster agreed. “That would be cool, but there are still travel restrictions. We’re in Social Distancing, remember? I guess we’ll just have to wait until traveling is safe again. But hey, wasn’t the view breathtaking?”“Plus we got to see all the famous artwork in the Louvre,” I added. “Did we ever find out if the Picasso Museum was in France or Spain?” Foster considered for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But it was cool getting to see it anyway.”   “And remember when we went to India?” I asked. “We wanted to see if there were elephants there and ended up overhearing some men plotting a crime. We were able to report it just in time!”“Oh yeah, that’s right!” Foster exclaimed. “I had almost forgotten! It was kind of like undercover work. And then we were honored in a press conference for our help.”I had to laugh. “And when you wanted to listen to those men we heard talking in Italy, I was out of there!” Foster laughed too. “Yeah, I remember. But fortunately they were only talking about the weather.”“One thing about that trip, we sure found a lot of ice cream vendors,” he continued.
“And what about when we went to NASA and you got lost in space?” Foster asked, stifling a laugh. “That was not funny,” I replied. “It was just a good thing they spotted me on their monitors in Houston!”“Yeah, I know,” Foster admitted. “Mom would have been really mad if I had come home without you!” “And I almost had to when we were in China looking for your long lost relatives. Remember the Wolong panda reserve?” Foster continued. “You still owe me for buying you back out of that souvenir shop!” “Well,” I replied irritably. “That was partly your fault. You shouldn’t have let me climb into the baby panda area.”Foster quickly changed the subject. “What about when we went to Sweden to find the Petersons’ farm?” “Oh yeah!” I exclaimed. “That Swedish folk dancing demonstration was the best!”“That and getting to pilot the ferry across the fjord,” Foster added. “Speaking of pilots,” he continued. “Remember when you went skydiving in Basic Training? Too bad you couldn’t have gotten your pilot’s license.”“True,” I conceded, “but at least I got my jeep driver’s license. Which is a good thing, considering what happened when you drove that jeep in Africa!” Now it was Foster’s turn to say “That’s not funny!” “Well at least we got rescued by that man with the elephants. How was I supposed to know the river was going to be that deep?” It was my turn to change the subject. “We’ve met a lot of new animal friends around the world, too,” I ventured.“There was the rescue dog and our penguin friends in the Swiss Alps,” offered Foster. “Seriously,” I said, nodding. “And those guys get around. We’ve met up with them at the San Diego Zoo and Yosemite. I wonder if they’ve made it to the South Pole yet?” I shook my head. “With them, there’s no telling,” I mused. Foster yawned. “All this travel is making me sleepy,” he said. “Let’s go finish our nap.”So that’s what we did.

Author’s note: If you are new to our blog, click the links in this story to read the adventures Foster and Panda are referring to. (Or maybe you’re a “regular” reader and you just want to imagine going somewhere fun because you’re in “lockdown” too.)