Last Road Trip

The weather was beautiful this morning, crisp, but warm. It was the perfect early spring day. Yesterday the governor all but stated that he was considering a shelter in place order.  We are sure that it is coming, and soon. Everyone is panicking on that idea. They need to stock up so they can be comfortable at home for an undetermined amount of time.  I had been listening to Covid-19 news since I had gotten up and was considering a brisk ride on my bike. My head exploded days ago and I'm at the point where I'm not processing what just happened anymore. Karen came into my bedroom and asked if I'd like to ride around while she did some errands. I really did want to get out, so I tagged along. A few minutes into the ride, she stated that she really wasn't feeling like doing  errands today. She wanted to know if I would like to drive through the passes. She didn't have to ask twice. That seemed so much more welcome than hanging out in a car in a parking lot in Tacoma.

The Cascades through the pass are absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. Despite the reality that we would have no shops or restaurants to visit, the drive was worth it for the views alone. The beauty was overwhelming. The best part of learning geography in school was learning about how the different features of an area were formed. I'd studied how the two Teutonic plates off the Pacific coast we re pushing against each other causing the Cascades to rise out of the earth and causing earthquakes and volcano's. Learning about it was cool to my nerdy heart. But seeing it? Oh my, oh my! It is absolutely incredible. When I was flying to Seattle and saw them through the plane window I audibly said, "Oh my God!" over and over. I'm sure the people sitting by me thought that I was the luniest toon they'd ever encountered. But the beauty and the vastness of the mountains and the valleys is stunning.  While I was blessed to see them from a plane and the comfort of a personal car on a well paved highway, I consider what Lewis and Clark must have experienced when they came on these giants after making their way across the country. Or considering the pioneers who made their way across them with a oxen and wagon and step by step. Those were some grimly determined people. They must have be both awestruck and overwhelmed with the task of climbing through them, but they persevered. I wondered at the overpowering tasks that faced them every day.

We ended up in Roslyn, which is pretty close to the center of the state. If you don't recognize the mural on the building in the first picture, it was in the opening shots of the show Northern Exposure that aired, I believe in the 1990's. While the show aired it was my favorite show of the week, the one that I made sure too never missed an episode.  It was about a fictional town in Alaska called Cicely. The town is in actuality a touristy kind of place outside of a State Park, and because of the series, a cult destination of it's own. But today because it was the last day of winter and off season, not to mention the middle of the week, we did not expect crowds. When you add to it the shops, stores, restaurants, bars, theaters, etc were all closed the town was really deserted. I felt so lucky to be out of doors. I felt so lucky to be in a place I never dreamed that I'd see, or beauty that I didn't really quite fathom was there. I was just damned happy to be able to stroll around town.

The way home was equally as stunningly beautiful but my mind was filled to the brim with the world that we were in, the possibility that this would be my last outing, at least for a very long time. All my life I have read about the shocking beginnings of dystopian societies. I'd read about Anne Frank, Corrie Ten Boom and others who woke up one morning and  the world they were living in was a threatening and eerily frightening. I'd read Issac Asimov. I read  apocalyptic books, Christian, Pagan and secular alike. I have read books about pandemics, nuclear blasts, wars and acts of God that have in one day changed the course of the whole world. It feels like that is what has happened. A couple of weeks ago China was experiencing yet another outbreak from open markets. Like Ebola for the most part, it was an "over there" type event. UPS had a communications file that represented a full year of work dedicated to what would happen if  that kind of crisis should spread globally. It had never been used. It was the thing of books and movies, of Chicken Littles who ran around decrying the falling sky. Now it seems to be our reality. Industries that promote social gathering have been ordered to close. Churches are closed. People are ordered to stay in their homes. We think we my be told that soon. That is why our outing was so good, even if limited.  Two of my three children will go bankrupt. They work in the service sector. Everyone is living under threat of contracting a terrifying disease. This feels unreal. It's hard to fathom now. In a week or too, I'm sure that I will be wishing to go back to the naivety that I am currently living in.

I hope that you are safe, well stocked and staying healthy. I learned to hate the term "New Reality" when I had cancer. It is no less odious now.