There is a car wash one block away from my office. It’s the kind where you drive onto the track and it automatically pushes you through. Inside there are different stations: the station where the car is initially sprayed, the station where sudsy soap is sprayed from the top, and the sides of the mechanical device, then there are the brushes that move those suds around, then of course the rinse, and a liquid wax.
I have always loved this car wash because it’s convenient, the people who work there are nice, and honestly it gives me about 60 seconds to sit in the dark and quiet for just a moment and listen to the hum of the machine doing the work. At the end of the 60 seconds, I feel slightly refreshed and the car is clean!
And Then One Day…
I rarely go to my office these days except to retrieve mail once a week. I was over there last week and thought, “why not get the car washed?” For the first time EVER, I got stuck in the car wash. Yep, I was somewhere between the big rubber brushes scrubbing my car and the suds all over every window—I couldn’t see a thing.
It’s always dark in there, but they have these cool purple, pink, and green lights that make it look like the soap is actually these beautiful colors. Not true though, because when the power goes out, it’s simply dark, and the soap is just plain suds, no fun colors.
Now what?
I sat there for a while listening closely to see if there would be some time of announcement. I get no reception in the car wash, so there is no music playing, and now no hum of the machine making my car look pretty. Just darkness and I can’t see anything out of the windshield of windows because it is covered in suds. Silence and darkness.
I briefly wondered if I should step out, but with my luck, the machine would start up and I would be smacked in the face with one of those big rubber brushes and my car would take off without me. I decided they knew I was there, so I would just wait….patiently….without being able to see anything around me.
The Car wash and the Tourism Industry
It was at that time I realized this was a bit of an analogy to what we were all going through in the travel industry the past 6 months. We were just moving along, forward motion, there were many people that were helping us put pieces into place to have a beautiful shiny product for our clients (just like my clean car).
Then, without any warning, all of those things came to a halt. Everything stopped, the lights went out, and we were left just sitting there not entirely sure what to do. Most of us were left like me, with no choice of getting out of the car. We stayed, we have been patient.
Then, even in the darkness, the soap suds started moving out of the way. They were sliding downward, and small holes were opening for me to see forward. I saw sunshine at the end of the car wash tunnel! Little beads of sunshine slowly breaking through as the soap suds started to part. After what seemed like 20 minutes, but was probably only 5 minutes, the hum of the machine started again, and I was on my way.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
As I finished getting the car washed, rinsed, and waxed, I started reflecting as I moved closer to the end of that mechanical track. I realized that COVID may have stopped us in our tracks, and that everything that made us stop was out of our control. But also, the soap suds are starting to clear, and we are getting closer to being able to move forward and back into the sunlight.
Hang in there folks! We are going to make it! When we get to the end of the tunnel it may look different, but it will still be shiny and we will be proud of the products we can once again offer to our travelers.
Barb Mock is the owner of Travels With Barb, a Student Tour Operator based in Nebraska. Barb was recently featured in a Tourism Pro Talk interview, which you can read here.
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