Trapped in Paradise

A little over a week ago I was looking toward our lift off date of April 4^th with a good deal of optimism that the current national crisis will have peaked and be on the downhill side of the hysteria by the time we leave. This morning I am not feeling as confident about that.

Northern Mockingbirds fight over mates. Black Bellied Whistling Ducks are suddenly inhabiting the tops of the towering palm trees around my RV. Red Winged Blackbirds are dwindling in numbers as are the American Pelicans who have graced the surface of the Resaca on the other side of the levee at the end of my street where I take my morning walks. They are making their way back to Iowa. Saylorville Lake our summer basecamp will soon be alive with their calls and presence. Spring is in the air and I am jealous of the bird’s blissful ignorance of our human problems.

The park is emptying out quickly with those who still have brick and mortar homes to return to after a winter of snowbird frolic. Many like us are still here trying to come up with a game plan based on shaky, quickly changing data. This is a scenario no one has ever really developed a backup plan for since, nothing like this has happened in our lifetime. The nation is paralyzed in fear and uncertainty. Campgrounds, like the one we work at every summer are closed for the foreseeable future with no firm opening date on the calendar. There are a couple of RV parks designed for full timers around the area we call home, but they are so far unable to accommodate our fluid timeframe. Today, I am hoping the RV park near our kids where we have a tentative reservation through the third week of April will get a cancellation so we can stay there until our job calls us to work. If not, we will be forced to stay put for several more weeks.

Even without the uncertainty of a place to stay, protocol dictates a quarantine period when we arrive back home to avoid the risk of carrying the virus, unwittingly or asymptomatically from the RGV to Iowa.  Most who left ahead of us have made it to their destination safely and are self quarentining. Others are flying by the seat of their pants in limbo between here and their next assignment.  We joke about being houseless, but this is different and a little unsettling to say the least.

We will assess our situation later this week and try to make a good decision based on imperfect data. It will kill us and some of our loved ones at home, emotionally to stay here beyond the 4^th, but it may indeed be the wise thing to do. I was talking to my son yesterday and he said, “Mom, make your decision based on facts and not your emotions.”  WOW! The reality that my sweet little boy is now a 35-year-old man with a family hit me like a boulder.  I wonder if he shuddered when he heard himself say it to me and think. “Oh God, I just sounded like Mom”. 

In the meantime, I’ll sit on my patio in deep south Texas and watch the season change, watch videos of grandkids, look at pictures of past family gatherings, and dream of when we are home and all this nonsense is behind us and evolved into a story to be told around the campfire ten years from now.

Until Next Time….