A Road Trip During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Is it a good idea?
Editor’s Note: We want to thank our writers for contributing unique, moving, and personal stories related to the new reality of a world besieged by the virulent coronavirus. We will be sharing those stories with you, along with our usual articles. We hope they bring you comfort, camaraderie, and company during difficult times.
By Carolyn Handler Miller
A road trip in the middle of a pandemic – that’s about as crazy as having a picnic in the middle of a December snowstorm, or going to Hawaii for downhill skiing. But there weren’t any other good options. Flying seemed more dangerous. And how else could we get from New Mexico to the California coast, a journey of over 1000 miles? We had to get to California on urgent business: House hunting.
We’d just sold our house in Santa Fe and sold it far more quickly than we’d ever expected – in a miraculous three days. We were ecstatic at the speedy sale and were too naïve about real estate to realize that the sale could be suddenly terminated by an unfavorable inspection report. The buyers were only giving us a month to pack up and be gone. As far as we knew, we’d soon be homeless, unless we could find a new house back in our home state, California.
Up until we put our house on the market, I’d been carefully observing the rules of the pandemic. Because I have a chronic lung disease (bronchiectasis) and was at serious risk if I contracted Covid-19, I rarely left the house. My husband, Terry, took care of food shopping and unavoidable errands. Occasionally, to break the monotony, I’d ride along with him, but would always stay in the car, staring out at the empty streets and the rare pedestrians, all wearing masks. New Mexicans, as a whole, observed the new rules faithfully. Terry always wore a mask and scrubbed his hands as soon as he got home. My only treat was our weekly hike and picnic, usually not far from our house.
But the need to avoid homelessness was forcing us out of the safety of sheltering in place. The road trip sounded scary. It would take us through Indian Country, which had high rates of infection. And we’d have to stay in hotels, in rooms that might or might not have been carefully sanitized. We vowed to only stay in places that practiced strict sanitation protocols. On the road, safe, homecooked meals would be out of the question. We would pack food for lunch for the first day, so we could avoid having to buy anything along the way. Other than that, our food would have to be from takeout places, probably fast-food chains. We also packed plenty of sanitizing wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer. To avoid infection, we resolved not to use public restrooms. Instead, we would seek out roadside trees or bushes for privacy.
That was our first dilemma – turning a spot in nature into a restroom. You can’t just pull off the interstate to relieve yourself, especially when you’re driving through a desert. So, on Day 1, with bladders about to burst, we took the next exit off Interstate 40 to look for a suitable spot. No nearby trees or bushes here, either. But we did discover a nice place for our picnic lunch -- a grassy park with a river running through it. We dutifully wiped the picnic table with sanitizing wipes and dug into our food.
But still no bushes or trees for privacy. Finally, with bladders screaming, we pulled into a highway truck stop. Defeat. But our bladders thanked us. We prayed we hadn’t gotten contaminated. At least the place looked clean and everyone was wearing a mask. People in New Mexico took the pandemic seriously.
Some hours later, we crossed the border into Arizona and were heading towards Flagstaff, our destination for the night. Flagstaff was still miles away and our bladders were impatient again. We pulled into another truck stop, but WAIT! This wasn’t anything like New Mexico! No one here was wearing a mask and the place was full of people milling around the food aisles and the displays of tacky souvenirs. These people in Arizona clearly hadn’t gotten the message about social distancing. We scurried into the restrooms and departed as quickly as possible.
The next few days, resigned to public restrooms, our main concern turned to food. Lunch meant grabbing something at a fast-food restaurant and eating in the car, even when it was 115 degrees out. Dinner was a major challenge. Restaurants shut down early because of the pandemic, and by 7 pm, when we usually pulled into our hotels, they were all closed up. We got panicky, worrying there’d be no dinner for us. But usually, a fast food joint was still open. We ate tacos three days straight for dinner. Normally, I never eat meals from fast-food chains. For me, one of the great pleasures of a road trip are cocktails in a historic hotel overlooking a colorful street scene and dinners at a good restaurant, but such experiences were not to be enjoyed on this trip. And forget taking any interesting side trips.
Breakfasts were even worse than dinners. Hotels have resorted to Grab ‘n’ Go breakfast bags, virtually devoid of nutrition. Usually, there was just a bottle of water, a muffin, and a calorie-laden breakfast bar. If you were extremely lucky, your bag might also contain a piece of fresh fruit, but this was rare. Never a hard-boiled egg or a packet of cheese and crackers.
Once we were in California, people were extremely good again about wearing masks and social distancing. But in Burbank, we got a jarring wakeup call about the reality of the pandemic. Our hotel room looked down at the handsome St. Leon Armenian Cathedral. Gazing at the church a little before sunset, around 7 pm, I spotted a handful of people all dressed in black.
“Look, Terry. It must be a funeral.”
“Nah, can’t be,” the former altar boy informs me with authority. “You don’t do funerals this late.”
Just then, to prove him wrong, a hearse pulled up. The next morning the church parking lot was filled with cars. People in black were flooding into the Cathedral. Another funeral. Two within 24 hours. A grim reality in the time of a pandemic.
The streets of Los Angeles were filled with protesters, sparked by the murder of George Floyd and also fueled by frustrations over the unequal suffering of minority communities during the pandemic. Some of the protests turned violent with looting and fires. A woman called to tell me in a fear-filled voice that my appointment that day was cancelled because the office was located on a street packed with protestors.
The next morning, we were on the road again, in a rush now to get home because a negative inspection report caused the sale of our house to be abruptly terminated. We needed to get back to fix everything we could and get the house back on the market. Though unsettled by this bad news, we are relieved to leave the pandemonium of the city behind us. We even welcome the emptiness of the Mojave Desert, where social distancing is an everyday reality. We return home after 2500 miles on the road symptom-free, but wiser.
Road trips during a pandemic are risky affairs and no fun at all. Do avoid them if possible.
Carolyn Handler Miller (www.carolynhandlermiller.com) is a writer who works across a variety of media. Originally beginning her career as a newspaper reporter and magazine journalist, Carolyn's projects span TV shows and specials, feature films, books and new media. She is one of the pioneering writers in the field of interactive narrative, where she has contributed to over 50 projects as a writer, writer-story designer, and consultant. She is the author of “Digital Storytelling: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment” (Focal Press), now in its fourth edition.
