Pamela was up early, and I do mean early. She has been watching the kayak we purchased make its way to us on UPS tracker. She watched intently as it spent its weekend in Lexington, KY. This morning it was on the move and said it was heading toward delivery!! Yahoo!! She was fired up. Her reaction to this final anticipation was to start putting the last minute items in Mr Spock. I’m sure, if she had her way, we would be sitting in the driveway with the engine running when the truck arrives. I’m not quite so energetic in the mornings and to deal with that antsy feeling of anticipation, I elected to roll over and try to go back to sleep. I was only partially successful.
This is the 159th day since Kentucky started locking down and our self-imposed isolation. I had arrived about nine or ten days before, so I’ve been sequestered east of the Mississippi for a good 169 days. Other than when we are working for the park service, we’re never anywhere 169 day! I have a hard time getting Pamela to sit still for 16 days. This time last year we had traveled almost 30,000 miles. So far this year we under 10,000 miles. Mr Spock has only had three oil changes and two tire rotations. You can imagine how anxious we are to get back on the road where we belong.
Like the rest of 2020, we had an immediate crisis. Since we obviously are not working in Glacier we decided to check out southwest Colorado. We’d heard so many wonderful things about it, but we had always been working. Two or three days ago we learned that I-70, one of the main passes through the mountains, had been closed for three days because of fires. Before we could figure out a new route we found that the perimeter of Colorado is lined with fires. There is no way for us to get to western Colorado without dipping south into the 100+ degree areas or running the gauntlet of Sturgeous Covid infection by trying to get there from the north. We had to change our plans. We’re going to explore northern Minnesota. There’s a good chance that we’ll head home to Montana later, but that’s another story which could turn into a dream. Nothing is fixed in Covid-America.
This type of anticipation is so superior to anything which we’ve experiences for 159 day. To be back on the road at all was beginning to look like a dream. That makes the anticipation even better. We’ve had time to see all our family and visit a few places in Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. We’ll be back by October for our usual fall family visits before heading back to Arizona and Mexico. But for right now the excitement is just putting our tooth brushes back in Mr Spock, where they belong, and heading “out there … that way” as Captain Kirk would say pointing into deep space.
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