Wow. Head spins. Like the rest of the world we are reeling. It’s been an…interesting last six weeks or so as we watched Italy, then Germany and Spain become overrun with the COVID-19 virus. And when our home state of Washington became the headline front runner with the most cases in the US (at that time) we saw that nowhere was immune to this illness.
The first major impact on our travels was when we made the decision (prior to it being made for us) that we weren’t going to go to Italy on March 20th. This made me terribly sad, as this was one of those dream trip segments. As we have watched and read events unfold, and are still unfolding, our hearts go out to the people of Italy. Now, similar levels of catastrophe are occurring all over the globe. We hope and pray that this virus runs its course quickly. I don’t want to appear flippant about any this, but if I don’t try to look at the lighter side of the situation it threatens to overwhelm me.
So…no Italy. What to do? We considered going to Spain, Portugal or the south of France. This virus wasn’t going to spread everywhere, was it? At that point we were concerned that we would be out the money for the flight to Europe – so were trying to find an alternative. After dithering… extensively… on this, we (with influence from others) decided we would stay in Mexico. I won’t bore you with the back and forth discussions on the remainder of this subject, final answer: we would go to San Miguel de Allende. This city fascinates me. We found a house, arranged a car and driver – everything was in place. We had even secured a promise of refunds for our flights to Europe! We were golden.
Last Wednesday morning we were in communication with our host in San Miguel. We were very much looking forward to our trip to there! I had an appointment that afternoon. When I got home the Husband requested that I read an article featuring an interview with the President of Mexico. Dude…I am very concerned for the people of Mexico. Between his attitude towards COVID-19 and the lack of preparedness within the medical system (probably due to funding) we realized that waiting out the situation in Mexico might not be such a good plan. Our instincts were screaming GO. Fortunately (as this was prior to the US President announcing border restrictions with Mexico) we were able to secure tickets for the three of us on the afternoon flight for Sunday. We still aren’t certain why we thought Sunday was the best plan…because Friday morning we were feeling antsy again. I believe it was also on Friday morning that the border restrictions were announced. To our good fortune, there was still a few seats on the Saturday flight out of Guadalajara. We were then in a whirlwind of activity because we now had less than a day to pack and prepare! Crazy times. We did make certain to have one last meal at Gosha’s though! Our wonderful server, Pancho, who we have become very fond of, let us know that the restaurant was closing the following Monday – if the Mexican federal government wasn’t going to take action, the local governments would! We find ourselves very concerned about the people we got to know down there. Many do no have the funds to stock up and many, many business exist in tiny storefronts or along the side of the road. And Mexico has no unemployment program.
Saturday morning arrived and we were off to the airport. We had managed to get all of our bags under 23kg – they were 22.4, 22.6, 22.6, and…22.6 😝 Not surprisingly the international terminal at GDL was busy. There were Canadians still trying to get home and hordes of US citizens and residents hurrying to get back. There was no such thing as social distancing in the check in line. Once checked in we made our way over to security – where we did undergo a thermal temperature scan. This was not in place the week before – I was glad to see it happening. We passed the temperature check, got through security, found something to eat…note to self: stop trying to do this at GDL! It invariably takes wwaaaaay too long. Once again we were among the last to board. We have never encountered this at any other airport.
It was an uneventful flight, with one exception. The Daughter asked me to set her dragonfruit-mango drink from Starbucks in the corner of my beloved (purple fortunately) Kate Spade tote. She wanted to let the ice melt. It seemed pretty secure there. Except that I must have knocked it over with my foot at some point. Yeah…dark purple drink soaked my bag and everything in it. Funnily enough now that it’s dry you can’t even tell!
As we were coming in over San Jose, CA it was downright eerie to see the mostly empty roads and freeways on a Saturday afternoon. And the San Jose airport was so quiet. It was understandable that almost nothing was open too.
As you can see we had a very scenic flight north. It was a nice next to the last leg of our trek. SeaTac was moderately quiet (considering what it is usually like) and we got our bags in record time. Cool! For the first time ever we rented a car at home (never needed to you know?) and headed…east. That was very strange as home is a straight shot north up I-5. We were not going home though, we were going to Ellensburg in central Washington.
The Cousin (who often travels to where we are) very generously offered (probably in a weak moment, never thinking that we would take her up on it) to let us isolate at her house. So, here we are, fingers crossed that we didn’t pick up the nasties in our travels, trying to be good house guests and not give our hosts anything! Once we are certain that we are healthy we will make our way to the valley. We are both very busy with COVID-19 work for our employers!
Now to leave you with some of the humor that has cropped up. Other people are so clever!
Take care of yourselves and each other. Hopefully this terrible virus runs it’s course quickly. And praying that we all take some of the positive lessons from this experience. It’s not all for one. It can’t be.