The COVID Chronicles #79: Traveling in the Pandemic

I have neglected this blog for the past 2 months because here in our little corner of southeastern Arizona, life has been returning to normal. Mask mandates have been lifted as vaccination numbers have increased. The long lines of cars to the local Thursday morning drive-thru vaccination site have been diminished and really no longer a public nuisance. When the vaccine first became available, there was a station set up across from our local hospital every Thursday morning, which required our local police department to set up a traffic control system to allow people like me to drive through it all and get to work. Now that those people who have gotten their vaccine shots, there no need to make a fuss about the weekly vaccination site. As I mentioned in previous posts, both Wife and I got our shots at events offered for students and employees of the community college I work for. 

Traveling in the pandemic has been interesting and between the 2 of us, Wife has done more than I have. In May, Wife joined my parents on a cross-country road trip to Virginia to be with my sister, who was giving birth to her first child. They took all of their food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which meant they avoided eating out. They would stop for lunch at a roadside rest stop or picnic area to eat sandwiches out of the cooler (just like I did when I was a kid) and would then meet up in one of their rooms for dinner, which on the way out there, consisted of take out bbq food from Famous Dave's. The idea to eat Famous Dave's bbq was not because they liked it, but because it worked for my parents during a previous road trip and once they learn a trick, they just keep doing it. 

Last month, Wife and I road tripped to Oregon to visit my elderly aunt and uncle. We ate the "grab n go" breakfasts provided by the Best Western hotels at which we stayed, purchased our lunches at supermarket delis & then ate them in the car, and tried to enjoy a local restaurant for dinner. We packed plenty of hand sanitizer and always had our masks at the ready. When we stayed in Yreka, California, their county's mask mandate had just been lifted, but the staff was still wearing their masks and working behind plastic shields on the front desk. 

On Friday, Wife left for her home country of Japan on an extended, open-ended trip to be with her mom who is undergoing cancer treatments. Prior to leaving, Wife needed to have a negative COVID test no more than 72 hours prior to departure and complete a quarantine questionnaire. She was tested again upon arrival, transported to a government hotel (in Yokohama) where she will stay another 3 days before she is tested again. If she is negative, she is allowed to leave to quarantine for another 11 days, which will be at her cousin's house in Tokyo. 

This means that I'm home alone for the foreseeable future, which means I may be including some of rediscovered bachelorhood habits. 

All for today!