Well, our world sure has changed quickly, hasn't it? No school, distance learning, colleges closed, restaurants closed, stores closed... on and on.
Believe it or not I had to travel this weekend and chose to drive, not fly... a long trip. The first thing we noticed was that traffic was light -- until we reached the dreaded Georgia/South Carolina border where we lost a lane. Traffic continued heavy - stop and go for miles. I have no idea why a highway that transports so many people from the North to the South and back again is a two lane highway! Well, a topic for another blog.
As we crawled along, I noticed that the majority of cars and mobile homes were from Canada - Quebec and Ontario. They must have listened to the Prime Minister's speech days earlier urging Canadians to come home.
There are many times when I'm on the road that i'm irritated at the trailer trucks clogging up the lanes. But listen to me now, NEVER again. These gals and guys are the backbone of our country keeping our economy rolling. As I drove along, I felt like buying each and every one of them a coffee and a meal if there were any restaurants open. Thank you road warriors!!
When we stopped for gas, we noticed all the restaurants that we trusted to have clean restrooms were "drive-up" only which meant everyone traveling had to stop at rest areas or the gas station markets. Even pumping gas, we wore gloves and disposed of them before reentering the car and then sanitized our hands.
I had packed lots of snacks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and hard boiled eggs so we were never hungry and never stopped, except for my Dunkin' coffee -- even the virus couldn't keep me from my coffee. :-)
Then we had to stop for the night. We picked a decent hotel and when checking in, I asked for a room that hadn't been booked for a few days knowing the virus supposedly didn't live on anything past 72 hours. She didn't really have that information so gave us a top floor room all the way at the end of the corridor.
Once in the room, out came my Clorox spray bottle and I cleaned every surface that we would touch. A friend had advised this and I'm so glad she did. Maybe it was a false sense of hope that I had destroyed the virus that had lived in that room but I felt better and that's all that counted I guess. She also suggested that I take my own sheet to throw over the bed, which I did, but then added my own pillow cases as well. We slept on top of the bed with towels over us. I know, it sounds absurd now that I write about it, but it felt necessary at the time. Is it over the top panic? Most likely but who's going to be the one to take that chance... not me.
We needed to eat and Outback took takeout orders over the phone and delivered. We had a great picnic.
The next day at breakfast, I conducted an unscientific study about why more men come down with the virus than women. Before I selected tongs, I picked up a napkin and then used them. The same was true when I used the coffee pump and creamer, but I watched the men just handle everything, no napkin, bare handed. When we sat down, my husband said, "You just saw why the study was right. Men touch everything without a thought."
We powered on for the rest of the day stopping to switch drivers, to use the restrooms and to pick up a Dunkin'. The rest areas became less populated as we moved up the east coast. Truckers had special areas reserved for them at the back.
When we returned home, I immediately threw everything into the washing machine, left our jackets in the garage where they still sit, and showered.
As I said in the beginning, our world sure has changed quickly. I'm glad to be home writing again. There are many stories in that trip back as well as the days leading up to it, but I had to tell this one. I'm sure that each of you have stories that should be written about these times. When we emerge from these days and we will, we can look back and make a judgment as to whether we were smart, took unnecessary risks, or overdid everything.
Stay safe and be well,
Till,
Judi
