On Making Memories and Developing Grit During the COVID Era
Do you remember the holidays you took while you were growing up? Do you remember what went "right" and what went "wrong" and what your parents seemed to be doing while all that was occurring? Sometime in the early 1980s my family was travelling to Waskesiu Lake (Prince Albert National Park) pulling a boat. The boat trailer tire came off or went flat and there was some involvement of a pop can to cover the wheel bearing. I don't know if we were South or North of Prince Albert, nor do I remember how old I was or if I was even there. I have heard the story a few times and I am not sure if I actually experienced it first hand or if I only "remember" it through other family member's memories. Either way, the outcome was clear, my parents found a solution and kept going.
In the late 1990s my friend and I hitched a ride with my employer to Medicine Hat (2.5 hours away). She was making a weekend day shopping trip and we went along. I remember my friend purchased her Graduation dress that day, but I also remember that the car broke down on the way home and we ended up needing to get someone to come get us.
These were formative events for me in my mind. I am risk adverse by nature and have had to learn to take risks even when I don't see the path to success. Through events like these in my childhood I learned that things don't always go as planned. I learned that you can have a plan but expecting that your plan will always come to fruition is a fallacy. We make calculated risks every day of our lives and sometimes it's easy to overcome challenges while others take more assessment, and often times, money. This is also true in my work because hardware fails, as do complex systems. The story I have to tell though has one factor that I never thought I would need to add to my risk analysis, and that is the COVID19 pandemic.
Last year we decided to book some camping for July 2020 at the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. Since Boy Canerican was in 4th grade last school year we get free access to National Parks for the year. As the pandemic started to take shape in our California County we watched the news and the numbers and discussed if we should go. We have been fairly vigilant about reducing our exposure in our local neighborhood. I work from home, we always wear masks in stores, we only go to stores for essential items (mostly), and our activities consist of outdoor walks, hikes and beachgoing (the beach is walking distance from our home and sparsely populated). We did a couple local camping trips in our County with an abundance of hand sanitizer. It seemed pretty easy to stay away from others with the exception of the restrooms where we felt the time was limited enough to reduce our exposure and risk of infecting others should we be infected but asymptomatic. We decided to cancel the Grand Canyon portion since all the tours we had booked were cancelled and we were going to need to ride in a bus, to which I just said flat out... no, no buses.
So Tuesday morning this week we packed up our stuff in the van and headed North towards Utah. We had planned to get to St. George the first day, spend the night in a motel (I wanted a room with a door to the outdoors) and head up to our camping spot at Bryce Canyon the next day. We made really good time and stopped in Baker for gas. About 15 miles out of Baker as I was telling Mr. Canerican that his estimates of getting to St. George after supper were way off and we were going to get there by late afternoon, the van sputtered some steamy shit through the vents at us. We were close to an offramp so limped her off the freeway and came to a stop.
We are a collectively cool couple, we don't yell or scream and we do not lay blame so we got to work on a solution. Mr. C called our friend and took some advice on how to assess the damage. The symptoms looked like we could have a cooling system issue, perhaps a radiator issue, cracked or disconnected hose. It was 108 F / 38 C and we were in the desert. We had lots of food and water but the place we had pulled out at had a set of abandoned buildings covered in graffiti. There was no "staying" there. At one point, a Caltrans highway patrol truck stopped by and offered us water. We called AAA to arrange a tow, and this is where COVID began to really put a wrench in our decision making. Even though we had excellent coverage - the first call dropped just as we were finishing the towing arrangements and we had to call back. We called back and started over with these thoughts in mind: Towing South meant we would probably be far from a place that could fix a Eurovan properly. Towing North meant we were going to head in to a highly populated area (Las Vegas to be exact) and being near other people was exactly the opposite of what we intended to do.
In all our planning, in all our careful attention to detail in the last few weeks of preparing for this trip (we have a port-a-potty in the van, we had enough food for the whole time, we had the plan of where were are staying and stopping all planned out, etc.) we never talked about what would happen if we had vehicle trouble. We had these conversations BC (Before Covid) and always "This is why we have AAA" was the answer. But having AAA DC (During Covid) is different than having AAA BC and I will tell you why shortly.
First, I want to talk about Vegas. Did I say I was risk adverse? Well, Vegas is one of the places in the world that I dislike the most. In 1999 we went to a family wedding in Medicine Hat. There I spent my very first gambling coin in a slot machine at or near our hotel. I was going to win something I knew it. Except - I put a quarter in a Loonie machine or the other way around and nothing happened because I jammed the thing up. I was terribly embarrassed and NEVER have I put money in a slot machine EVER again. This, in my mind was a sign. Ms. C - you should not gamble. Ok, great, not a problem. That sign has carried through my life as an underlying current with risk aversion. Vegas, in my mind, is where people take too many risks to have a good time. It's hot, it smells, and it's full of people. This is why what we did next will sound crazy.
Mr. C convinced me we should get the tow to Vegas. I was hardly interested in continuing past Vegas but he was certain this was the best plan to get the van fixed properly. Perhaps he thought that I might be able to be persuaded to continue to the National Parks after the van was repaired, but I think he knew that wasn't going to happen from the moment that shit blew through the vents after Baker. Cool, call AAA and get a tow and I guess we will ride in the tow truck. Except, no, not DC (During Covid). DC you can't ride in a cab with a tow truck driver because it's too risky for them and for you. It turns out DC you can ride, in your vehicle, on the flatbed, during the tow. So the choice is - an all expenses paid ~60 mile ride to Vegas in the van on the back of a tow truck, or a costly, higher physical risk Uber or Lyft ride, or perhaps some car rental arrangement.
We rode in the van on the flat bed. We wanted to stay with the van and all our stuff, and the tow truck driver was very nice and seemed competent. I know what you're thinking - is that even legal? Probably not but we rode that thing through a truck scale and waved without issue. Apparently, DC, in Nevada, yes, it's legal.
From here it gets better, but weird. Mr. C chose a repair shop based on Yelp reviews for the tow drop. We booked a hotel room and a truck rental a few blocks from the repair shop (we had bikes hitched on to the van and a shit ton of camping gear). When we got to the repair shop the owner said he couldn't look at it in the next day or so but called a "buddy" (another 20 minutes or so away) and forwarded us there. The tow truck driver was nice enough to keep going. I hop out of the van with a bottle of water and my shoulder bag and walk about a half Mile to the rental place (It's 42C in Vegas) to get the truck while Boy C and Mr. C ride on to the next stop. The truck rental turns out to be pretty good, it's a 4 door full sized truck. The rental clerk wears a mask the whole time and keeps his distance. I say yes I want coverage... ALL THE COVERAGE thank you very much no more risks. From there it took me another 40 minutes to get to the repair shop. Mr C had shared his location with me on maps and I had tapped his pin before it hit the destination so I had to stop once to recalculate my route.
Here's a moment from my memory as I pulled up to the repair shop. I can see the van is unloaded and the tow truck driver is gone. This repair shop is named William's or something and I just passed a trailer park. Where the hell am I? This hood looks rough. Mr. C says "we need to take everything out of the van". I'm like "No shit Sherlock". Sounds like William doesn't have that much experience fixing VWs but now we're here anyway and we're going to hand bomb everything out of the van into the truck including our bikes and go back to the hotel we booked (by the original repair shop). (There's no chance I am staying in this neighborhood anyway.) We couldn't actually fit everything in the truck and had to stow some stuff under the van seat. I am wondering who is watching us, it's hot AF. I'm saying things like "You should take the toolbox" and "this food won't melt here will it?" and "I am just piling these things over there you can Tetris that shit into the truck box."
Boy C. has a few choice quotes during this whole thing like "Well, this is why we get insurance right?" and I don't have the heart to tell him that insurance doesn't cover these things but yeah, AAA really saved us a lot of money on that tow.
We spend the night in the hotel and enjoy the pool in the morning. We wait to hear if the van is fixed and talk about booking another night in the hotel. We have all our camping food and gear but the hotel only has a microwave. I don't want to pick up food or eat out, I don't even want to go into the hallway. By the way - "Breakfast included" at medium budget hotels now means "granola bars and yogurt to go!". I like the pool and I think "I could spend a few more days here, this is how I prefer to camp anyway." Still not knowing the fate of the van we check out the hotels across the street because we find out that no rooms in our chosen hotel have a cook top and we decide we need that.
As we were talking to the front desk clerk at the hotel we plan to move to Mr. C misses a call from the mechanic. At this point I have booked one paid night at the new hotel and 4 MORE nights using Alaska's rewards system because we still need a vacation, we've lent our home to another family for a week or so and now we're having a cheap Vegas staycation until Monday.
I had about 140,000 Miles with Alaska Airlines, but we have no intentions of flying anywhere for the next 2 years. We used 110,000 to book 4 nights in the hotel and we have a full kitchenette and a separate bedroom.
So it's Wednesday about noon, the van is drivable. The problem is the heater core and it can be bypassed so the mechanic did that for $95. We have until 2:30 to move from one hotel to the other (New hotel let us check in at noon) and 5pm to return the truck to recoup one day of rental costs (we booked it for 2 just in case). We picked up the van, moved our stuff across the street to the new hotel and returned the truck by 2pm.
We've been to the pool 2 times every day and only seen 2 other people at the pool. Thursday we ordered pool toys for drive through pick up at Target. (4 rings and some Trolls 2 characters to which Boy C said "REALLY GUYS???" and we said "yeah go dive for them Trolls!"). This morning we drove to the Hoover Dam but it was closed. Mr. C "You know why they call it a dam?" Boy C "Yeah because it's not that damn exciting". We've continued to eat our camp food and watched a lot of home renovation shows. We still plan to return home early Monday morning. The jury is out on whether we will hike at home for a day or two once we get there or just return to "normal" DC life where I work and the boys ... do whatever they do while I work.
Finally a note about pandemic life DC - Covid is everywhere.
So we won't see Zion or Bryce Canyon this year. However, Boy C has learned that television commercials are a thing, not every trip goes as planned, and his parents are competent, mostly kind, problem solvers.
I don't know how far from home we will go following this adventure DC. Sometimes reality slaps you in the face and reminds you that travelling during a Pandemic is a bad idea no matter how much planning you think you have done. Sometimes the benefits might outweigh the risks and careful planning can help get you to your destination. Our home country beckons, we miss you all.
Much love,
m.
In the late 1990s my friend and I hitched a ride with my employer to Medicine Hat (2.5 hours away). She was making a weekend day shopping trip and we went along. I remember my friend purchased her Graduation dress that day, but I also remember that the car broke down on the way home and we ended up needing to get someone to come get us.
These were formative events for me in my mind. I am risk adverse by nature and have had to learn to take risks even when I don't see the path to success. Through events like these in my childhood I learned that things don't always go as planned. I learned that you can have a plan but expecting that your plan will always come to fruition is a fallacy. We make calculated risks every day of our lives and sometimes it's easy to overcome challenges while others take more assessment, and often times, money. This is also true in my work because hardware fails, as do complex systems. The story I have to tell though has one factor that I never thought I would need to add to my risk analysis, and that is the COVID19 pandemic.
Last year we decided to book some camping for July 2020 at the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. Since Boy Canerican was in 4th grade last school year we get free access to National Parks for the year. As the pandemic started to take shape in our California County we watched the news and the numbers and discussed if we should go. We have been fairly vigilant about reducing our exposure in our local neighborhood. I work from home, we always wear masks in stores, we only go to stores for essential items (mostly), and our activities consist of outdoor walks, hikes and beachgoing (the beach is walking distance from our home and sparsely populated). We did a couple local camping trips in our County with an abundance of hand sanitizer. It seemed pretty easy to stay away from others with the exception of the restrooms where we felt the time was limited enough to reduce our exposure and risk of infecting others should we be infected but asymptomatic. We decided to cancel the Grand Canyon portion since all the tours we had booked were cancelled and we were going to need to ride in a bus, to which I just said flat out... no, no buses.
So Tuesday morning this week we packed up our stuff in the van and headed North towards Utah. We had planned to get to St. George the first day, spend the night in a motel (I wanted a room with a door to the outdoors) and head up to our camping spot at Bryce Canyon the next day. We made really good time and stopped in Baker for gas. About 15 miles out of Baker as I was telling Mr. Canerican that his estimates of getting to St. George after supper were way off and we were going to get there by late afternoon, the van sputtered some steamy shit through the vents at us. We were close to an offramp so limped her off the freeway and came to a stop.
We are a collectively cool couple, we don't yell or scream and we do not lay blame so we got to work on a solution. Mr. C called our friend and took some advice on how to assess the damage. The symptoms looked like we could have a cooling system issue, perhaps a radiator issue, cracked or disconnected hose. It was 108 F / 38 C and we were in the desert. We had lots of food and water but the place we had pulled out at had a set of abandoned buildings covered in graffiti. There was no "staying" there. At one point, a Caltrans highway patrol truck stopped by and offered us water. We called AAA to arrange a tow, and this is where COVID began to really put a wrench in our decision making. Even though we had excellent coverage - the first call dropped just as we were finishing the towing arrangements and we had to call back. We called back and started over with these thoughts in mind: Towing South meant we would probably be far from a place that could fix a Eurovan properly. Towing North meant we were going to head in to a highly populated area (Las Vegas to be exact) and being near other people was exactly the opposite of what we intended to do.
In all our planning, in all our careful attention to detail in the last few weeks of preparing for this trip (we have a port-a-potty in the van, we had enough food for the whole time, we had the plan of where were are staying and stopping all planned out, etc.) we never talked about what would happen if we had vehicle trouble. We had these conversations BC (Before Covid) and always "This is why we have AAA" was the answer. But having AAA DC (During Covid) is different than having AAA BC and I will tell you why shortly.
First, I want to talk about Vegas. Did I say I was risk adverse? Well, Vegas is one of the places in the world that I dislike the most. In 1999 we went to a family wedding in Medicine Hat. There I spent my very first gambling coin in a slot machine at or near our hotel. I was going to win something I knew it. Except - I put a quarter in a Loonie machine or the other way around and nothing happened because I jammed the thing up. I was terribly embarrassed and NEVER have I put money in a slot machine EVER again. This, in my mind was a sign. Ms. C - you should not gamble. Ok, great, not a problem. That sign has carried through my life as an underlying current with risk aversion. Vegas, in my mind, is where people take too many risks to have a good time. It's hot, it smells, and it's full of people. This is why what we did next will sound crazy.
Mr. C convinced me we should get the tow to Vegas. I was hardly interested in continuing past Vegas but he was certain this was the best plan to get the van fixed properly. Perhaps he thought that I might be able to be persuaded to continue to the National Parks after the van was repaired, but I think he knew that wasn't going to happen from the moment that shit blew through the vents after Baker. Cool, call AAA and get a tow and I guess we will ride in the tow truck. Except, no, not DC (During Covid). DC you can't ride in a cab with a tow truck driver because it's too risky for them and for you. It turns out DC you can ride, in your vehicle, on the flatbed, during the tow. So the choice is - an all expenses paid ~60 mile ride to Vegas in the van on the back of a tow truck, or a costly, higher physical risk Uber or Lyft ride, or perhaps some car rental arrangement.
We rode in the van on the flat bed. We wanted to stay with the van and all our stuff, and the tow truck driver was very nice and seemed competent. I know what you're thinking - is that even legal? Probably not but we rode that thing through a truck scale and waved without issue. Apparently, DC, in Nevada, yes, it's legal.
From here it gets better, but weird. Mr. C chose a repair shop based on Yelp reviews for the tow drop. We booked a hotel room and a truck rental a few blocks from the repair shop (we had bikes hitched on to the van and a shit ton of camping gear). When we got to the repair shop the owner said he couldn't look at it in the next day or so but called a "buddy" (another 20 minutes or so away) and forwarded us there. The tow truck driver was nice enough to keep going. I hop out of the van with a bottle of water and my shoulder bag and walk about a half Mile to the rental place (It's 42C in Vegas) to get the truck while Boy C and Mr. C ride on to the next stop. The truck rental turns out to be pretty good, it's a 4 door full sized truck. The rental clerk wears a mask the whole time and keeps his distance. I say yes I want coverage... ALL THE COVERAGE thank you very much no more risks. From there it took me another 40 minutes to get to the repair shop. Mr C had shared his location with me on maps and I had tapped his pin before it hit the destination so I had to stop once to recalculate my route.
Here's a moment from my memory as I pulled up to the repair shop. I can see the van is unloaded and the tow truck driver is gone. This repair shop is named William's or something and I just passed a trailer park. Where the hell am I? This hood looks rough. Mr. C says "we need to take everything out of the van". I'm like "No shit Sherlock". Sounds like William doesn't have that much experience fixing VWs but now we're here anyway and we're going to hand bomb everything out of the van into the truck including our bikes and go back to the hotel we booked (by the original repair shop). (There's no chance I am staying in this neighborhood anyway.) We couldn't actually fit everything in the truck and had to stow some stuff under the van seat. I am wondering who is watching us, it's hot AF. I'm saying things like "You should take the toolbox" and "this food won't melt here will it?" and "I am just piling these things over there you can Tetris that shit into the truck box."
Boy C. has a few choice quotes during this whole thing like "Well, this is why we get insurance right?" and I don't have the heart to tell him that insurance doesn't cover these things but yeah, AAA really saved us a lot of money on that tow.
We spend the night in the hotel and enjoy the pool in the morning. We wait to hear if the van is fixed and talk about booking another night in the hotel. We have all our camping food and gear but the hotel only has a microwave. I don't want to pick up food or eat out, I don't even want to go into the hallway. By the way - "Breakfast included" at medium budget hotels now means "granola bars and yogurt to go!". I like the pool and I think "I could spend a few more days here, this is how I prefer to camp anyway." Still not knowing the fate of the van we check out the hotels across the street because we find out that no rooms in our chosen hotel have a cook top and we decide we need that.
As we were talking to the front desk clerk at the hotel we plan to move to Mr. C misses a call from the mechanic. At this point I have booked one paid night at the new hotel and 4 MORE nights using Alaska's rewards system because we still need a vacation, we've lent our home to another family for a week or so and now we're having a cheap Vegas staycation until Monday.
I had about 140,000 Miles with Alaska Airlines, but we have no intentions of flying anywhere for the next 2 years. We used 110,000 to book 4 nights in the hotel and we have a full kitchenette and a separate bedroom.
So it's Wednesday about noon, the van is drivable. The problem is the heater core and it can be bypassed so the mechanic did that for $95. We have until 2:30 to move from one hotel to the other (New hotel let us check in at noon) and 5pm to return the truck to recoup one day of rental costs (we booked it for 2 just in case). We picked up the van, moved our stuff across the street to the new hotel and returned the truck by 2pm.
We've been to the pool 2 times every day and only seen 2 other people at the pool. Thursday we ordered pool toys for drive through pick up at Target. (4 rings and some Trolls 2 characters to which Boy C said "REALLY GUYS???" and we said "yeah go dive for them Trolls!"). This morning we drove to the Hoover Dam but it was closed. Mr. C "You know why they call it a dam?" Boy C "Yeah because it's not that damn exciting". We've continued to eat our camp food and watched a lot of home renovation shows. We still plan to return home early Monday morning. The jury is out on whether we will hike at home for a day or two once we get there or just return to "normal" DC life where I work and the boys ... do whatever they do while I work.
Finally a note about pandemic life DC - Covid is everywhere.
- Caesar at the Caesar's Palace is wearing a giant golden mask.
- A huge ad in the distance beyond our pool reads "Touch buttons not faces"
- Enterprise has circle stickers on the floor that say "Please stand 6 feet apart"
- I took a picture in Calabasas of a sign that said "#calabasasopen We are open, wear a mask, keep distance"
So we won't see Zion or Bryce Canyon this year. However, Boy C has learned that television commercials are a thing, not every trip goes as planned, and his parents are competent, mostly kind, problem solvers.
I don't know how far from home we will go following this adventure DC. Sometimes reality slaps you in the face and reminds you that travelling during a Pandemic is a bad idea no matter how much planning you think you have done. Sometimes the benefits might outweigh the risks and careful planning can help get you to your destination. Our home country beckons, we miss you all.
Much love,
m.
Comments
Post a Comment