There’s irony to this. We’ve had plenty of situations force us to find the silver lining and to turn a frown into a smirk, a whine into a giggle and a grumpy complaint into dance party complete with extra special Saturday Night Live Spartan Cheerleader moves. We chose to enter the realm of the unexpected, willingly! Examples you ask? How about snow in Terlingua, TX while none in Bend, OR, wind and rain moving with us from city to city for the first month and a half of the trip, broken fridge handles, broken blinds, broken pins, backed up sewage, lost towells (not our friends the Towells, we know where they are!) and the list goes on. We figured by the end of this trip, we would have simply just increased our tolerance for the small, trifling stuff that doesn’t really matter and would press forward with our new found appreciation for history lessons learned.

But a pandemic? (What the woof!!??)

Well. No. Didn’t think to prepare for that or to be ready for the possibility of being on the road during something like this. And frankly, traveling the US or sitting at your desk in Bend, or wherever you are reading this, I can say with confidence, neither did you, right? So ok, we’re all in this together then.

So far. We’ve just tried to keep it simple.

We have read as much as we can and have been following all the sites about exposure. We have read up on China, France, Singapore and Italy’s responses. Earlier last week, knowing the US was likely heading in the same direction as Italy, Clark and I decided that we could control but one thing- our momentum. We figured we would have more options early before decisions and lock-downs forced our hands. We decided to stay by the beach and to go back to Presnells, our prior stop, Stop 18. We have booked our stay the remainder of March, all of April and all of May in Port St. Joe, Florida. Thank you AK for the offer to stay with you in Quogue. We may take you up on it if things get too crazy. We aren’t about to break our lease with our tenants in our house back in Bend- where would they go?

With Florida state parks closed, travel bans, supply and demand disruptions, point of interest closures, there’s no point in continuing on only to be faced with more uncertainty and possibly adding to the spread of COVID-19. Our community providers for our basic needs need time to shift to this new normal. My biggest concern right now is that private RV parks may decide to close down too and that state officials (the governor) will close the beaches. Being that Port St. Joe is only 3,500 people, I’m hoping they will decide that beach closures for all beaches in FL are not necessary- there simply isn’t the population issue at all of them. Besides, we have plenty of social distancing there (and I think it’s helping keep folks sane).

I’m bummed we had to cancel our trip to Tampa to see the Reeves on the 19th. They didn’t need house guests in addition to their 3 older kiddos returning home from work/university for an undetermined amount of time. We cancelled visiting Craig and family in Perry, GA, another one of Clark’s colleagues who so generously opened their home to us. We considered and then did cancel Ben’s trip from Myrtle Beach to visit Matthew Curtis in Pittsburgh- his mom, Jen is a PA and we didn’t want her having additional responsibilities to us while already putting herself on the front line. (Thank you JC!!) Also, we didn’t want Ben traveling by himself.

Since then, we have heard about quarantines, social distancing, school closures for the remainder of the school year. In Florida, the state has shut down the all of the State Parks, putting additional pressure on private RV parks to try to help those travelers. And there are plenty of Canadians here too who are looking to stay put. We just received a cancellation from KOA in the Outer Banks of NC that they are not taking any new reservations as well as cancelling existing reservations to close the park in 30 days. The locals didn’t want to risk exposure, so they displaced hundreds of travelers.

Some silver linings?

1- While the kids were worried about leaving school at SFS and falling behind, our access to curriculum has been uninterrupted because of our online format. I understand that Oregon’s governor shut down school until the end of April. There’s some irony there that now I’m more concerned about how brick and mortar schools are going to make up missed time. I hope they can all jump on the tech bandwagon and get live steaming or group meetings going next week. Ben and Izzy will continue to finish up their school year as planned.

2- To some degree, we have already been somewhat socially distant. Prior to this pandemic, we were dining at a local’s recommended restaurant or two throughout the week, but elected early on in our trip to spend our money on experiences instead of things and food. As long as grocery stores don’t shut down, we will be okay. And despite their small size, we have been able to load a remarkable amount of food into our two fridges and freezer. We still plan to support local by buying gift cards and ordering curbside pick up.

3- We are by the beach and the temperatures are averaging in the mid-70s. We are getting plenty of fresh air, sun, exercise and vitamin D. As I understand it, COVID-19 doesn’t like heat. Additionally, there are no reported cases in the Gulf Coast (yet?). Beach life ain’t bad and the kiddos are getting plenty of exercise.

4- We have been on the road long enough for Ben and Izzy to figure out how to share space. Now they have their friends more readily available to connect by phone, text, email, FaceTime or whatever tech medium they choose.

So stay safe, stay in touch and stay sane! Big, big virtual hugs. We will continue to update the blog and with pictures next time.