My Grand COVID Cross-Country Adventure (AKA GC3A) Part I

The Grand Plan

The makings of a cross-country adventure

Back in June my dear friend Ariel went to Sandpoint, Idaho to stay with her grandmother for the summer. A few of us discussed quarantining, testing, and reuniting in Sandpoint late summer, and perhaps dipping into Montana for a trip to Glacier National Park.

Meanwhile my friend Dorit was planning to visit family in Portland, and we discussed road tripping together and fulfilling my longtime dream of visiting Crater Lake. This is when my scheming began — What if I could combine forces and create one grand Northwest road trip? And why not add a distanced birthday camping trip to Mount Shasta on the front end?

At the same time, I was scheming how to get home to Atlanta to see my family. I know plenty of people who have safely flown despite COVID, but I was not ready for a 5+ hour flight in full PPE.

I started researching trains only to learn that Atlanta is strangely difficult to get to from Northern California via Amtrak. But there was a train from Glacier National Park to Chicago that was a mere 30 hours! And I figured I could drive from there. Was it the most efficient route? No. Was it the easiest route? Definitely not. But it somehow seemed the best route and just ridiculous enough to be fitting of the time. I booked myself a sleeper car for maximal COVID safety and a rental car from Chicago to Atlanta. And voila! My Grand COVID cross country adventure (dubbed “GC3A” by my brother) was born.

Departure date was set for August 21st from Oakland with an expected arrival in Atlanta on September 5th. A friend recommended I blog my adventure so here goes…..

Dry lightning, fires, a heatwave, and a new plan

In the middle of a record breaking heat wave, I woke up on the Sunday before departure to booming thunder and lightning strikes. For those of y’all who don’t know, this is completely bizarre Bay Area weather. I woke wondering if I had skipped the GC3A altogether and been magically transported back to Georgia.

Many of us appreciated the brief break from the heat and the refreshing short rain, not realizing that more than 10,000 lightning strikes had sparked hundreds of fires across Northern California. In the span of a week, these “fires of hell” have grown into some of the worst fires in state history.

I can’t quite explain the visceral feeling of being enveloped in fire smoke. It isn’t just the difficulty breathing, sore throat, and dry eyes. And it isn’t just imagining the decimated forests, the fleeing animals, the over 100,000 people evacuated from their homes, and the fire-fighters (for which California relies heavily on incarcerated individuals) risking their life for our safety. And it isn’t even the sinking realization that this is the (once completely avoidable) new normal due to climate change, and the inevitable questioning of whether California living is effectively over. Though that certainly weighs heavily. It is something instinctive that touches every nerve in your body setting off the alarm bells that something is not right, that you should not be here.

Throughout the week I experienced a new type of claustrophobia — a special cocktail of of unsettling fire reports, shelter-in-place, unhealthy air, and unrelenting heat. I had been surviving the shelter-in-place with a certain degree of grace having miles of trails and wilderness at my fingertips. I had spent spring exploring the East Bay regional parks and much of summer camping across Northern California. Stuck inside I had more of a sense of what shelter-in-place has meant for so many. But with the heat, inside was miserable too. I sat drenched in my own sweat watching the fire maps expand.

By August 20th (happy birthday to me!), Cal Fire announced that every California resident should pack a bag and be prepared to evacuate. You read that right. Every single one. Shasta was completely smokey just like practically all of Northern California. It was clear my birthday camping trip was not going to happen. Dorit and I decided to push back departure by a day to watch the progression of fires and assess whether it was safe to drive north. Then we hoped to head straight to Crater Lake and camp there on Saturday night in the clean Oregon air. Oh, how naive we were.

This story is Part I in My Grand COVID Cross Country Adventure, for Part II click here.