We Took a Pandemic Vacation
We have been more cautious than most, but we decided this summer to take a pandemic vacation. Feeling comfortable meant setting up boundaries beforehand over what we would and wouldn’t do; how far we would go; when we would pull the plug.
We’ve been using X per 100K numbers as a personal cutoff (5 or under = enter a family member’s home without a mask, 5 – 10 = enter a family member’s home with all of us masked, more than 10 = only socialize outside) so we applied this to our vacation plan. If the place we wanted to go had a number under 30 per 100K, we’d go on the trip. If it went above 30 before the 72-hour cancellation period, we’d cancel. If it hovering in the range after the cancellation period passed… well… we would cross that bridge if it came to that.
[Side note: We chose 30 because it was in the middle of the CDC’s moderate range. We were willing to go above 10 (the start of the moderate range) because we weren’t socializing inside. Or socializing at all. We only spoke to a handful of people while we were there, and it was quick, masked transactions. We would have chosen different numbers if we were socializing with people outside our home as part of the trip.]
So we watched the numbers at the beach and decided to take the plunge. We’d mask in the hotel from door to room (a policy of the hotel for everyone), bring our own food for breakfast and lunch, and do takeaway for dinner. We’d spend all day outside at the beach, far away from other families because the beach is pretty empty for high-season East Coast beaches.
And for the most part, it felt totally normal. We rode bikes in the nature reserve, sustained mosquito bites, ate potato chips on the sand. We made up stories about a group of people nearby decorated with an odd assortment of tattoos (a thigh-sized prawn with a human face, wearing a fedora). We optimistically purchased a year-pass for the nature reserve deciding that even if we didn’t use it again, we’d be okay with the money spent.
And in other ways, it felt totally abnormal. There were shortages everywhere. It was hard to get a diet Coke. The bicycle rental place was void of bikes. We had to slip on masks to walk from the car to our room. But none of that really mattered because we made it to the beach.
And we had tiny moments of happiness. The guy who works at the hotel who immediately recognized me even with my face half-covered and sunglasses. (“I could never forget your face!”) The restaurant owner who returned to the kitchen to make us takeaway after he had stopped taking orders for the night because he knew how much the meal meant to the ChickieNob. The local ice cream place deep-freezing an order to take on the road so we could carry the beach home. The Wolvog scouting out the bike path and ensuring my afternoon was grasshopper-free on the nature reserve.
The ChickieNob and I are still doing virtual walks every afternoon, and we’ve watched the videos start to include masked people over the year and a half. In some places, we’ll pass a handful of masked people and dozens upon dozens bare-faced. But the day after we got back from the beach, we walked in Kyoto. Every person in the video except one was wearing a mask. The point: It’s possible to continue living life if we make concessions and do so keeping other people in mind.
Our plan is to keep going through the fall and winter, using our number cutoff as a guide. It feels nice to be back at the beach.
9 comments
We had a great time on our vacation, though my sister was much less cautious then I. She’s used to living in a place where most people respect the mandates and wanted to be vaccinated. I live next door to Missouri. 🙄
I’m not waiting for things to be “normal” because I doubt that day will come. I just need to adjust my expectations.
I’m SO glad you got a vacation in! I have a feeling that window will close on us for a few months…
And… not going to lie, a bit goose-bumped and gut-punched by the arrival of facemasks in the walking videos. It feels like our pandemic surreality is now everywhere.
I love this story! I’m so glad you got to enjoy yourself and encountered so much kindness.
We did a similar vacation earlier this summer. We met up with Matt’s side of the family in a beach house. We all quarantined beforehand to be able to combine safely and then we kept entirely to ourselves, takeout and cooking in and beach trips where we stayed away from everyone else. We also managed a wild horse trip by renting out the entire truck for just our party (and the driver was in a separate section) and it was so lovely to be able to DO something. I’m so glad you managed to have this trip.
Also glad you were able to take this vacation, and it sounds lovely.
We owned a camping trailer even before the pandemic and used it frequently, and our camping vacations haven’t changed much (though campgrounds are more full, and there are many new novice camper owners!). We no longer eat out, and we now pack all our groceries before we leave, and some activities we would have engaged in previously (e.g. visiting a museum in a nearby town), we don’t. If the weather’s gross, it’s annoying not to be able to do things inside (e.g. the museum) to balance that out and we’ve called a few trips off early when foul weather persisted, but have been really fortunate.
We’ve done a few airbnb trips, too, but only to places we can easily drive to, and other kinds of trips we used to take, we don’t. We were very fortunate this summer to have extended family visit from overseas once they were all able to get their vaccines.
Your idea of using numbers — proportion vaccinated in addition to case rate springs to mind — as a way to plan and make decisions seems like a good one.
Sorry to be the negative Nancy here… There’s a study out of Australia where they actually have the capability to do real contact tracing and they did genomic analysis and proved that people got Covid in a hotel from people in other rooms – – it’s airborne. https://ww2.health.wa.gov.au/Media-releases/2021/COVID-19-update-1-June-2021-hotel-acquired-case-confirmed So our family is a big nope on any type of vacation.
Definitely not a negative Nancy, but there is definitely more to this case. It was a single transmission (with at least 12 other people on the floor), both people weren’t vaccinated, they likely got it from being in the hallway (getting meals that were left in the hallway) not being in their room, and they weren’t masked. That’s a lot of mitigation that could protect people. Of course, you could always have air flowing between two rooms in a hotel. But if you’re vaccinated and masked in the hotel in spaces outside your room, it’s a similar risk to living in an apartment building. Which is to say that it’s entirely possible to get it—and I completely understand avoiding the risk—but vaccines and masks add another layer.
Yay for vacation at the beach! It sounds like you were very careful. If this is just going to keep going and going and going, life has to go in in some way. I love that all the places remembered you and accommodated you.
Also I kind of wish you’d gotten a sneaky picture of that giant prawn tattoo. I think the image I have in my head will haunt me in my sleep.