Back in late June I turned in a vacation mail hold form for our PO Box. The eyes of the guy behind the counter grew big and he asked in an unbelievable tone “you’re leaving?” Normally it is a conversation about ‘where are you going?’ and ‘have a good time’ but nothing is normal in 2020. After a minute I understood the enormity of his question. After three months of “shelter in place” and only essential trips to the store we are going to venture out into the world during a global pandemic! We have been accused of being crazy but not stupid, at least to our faces. Certainly not a good example to set but we had three factors in play prompting the trip.
- Employment for the summer
- Fewer COVID cases where we were going (22 versus thousands)
- Traveling with our trailer meant no public restrooms or hotels needed
This isn’t the typical summer
Usually our summer includes a number of balloon rallies on weekends and camping during the week. We would spend time exploring pet friendly national parks or monuments to share on the blog. The last couple years have been less camping and more living and working in Teton Valley Idaho with a couple short trips to balloon rallies. Our Great Dane, Martok, was thrust into this semi-nomadic life style 10 weeks after we adopted him. It sometimes takes him a little while to get into the non-routine of travel. Walks and meals aren’t always at the same time each day but exploring new places and meeting new friends are things he enjoys.
Fewer balloon rallies this year
This year most of the balloon rallies, as with everything else, were cancelled or reduced in size. Our first foray out into this new normal world was the Panguitch Balloon rally, our only detour before reaching Idaho.
Moonshine crew checking Moonshine COVID safe way to glow the cloud hopper, on the truck Panguitch Balloon glow Martok watching me fly away Watching balloons Martok on the launch field
It was a bit scary, at least for me. People without masks, gathering, talking closely together, touching the same items. Many of them were from areas not yet highly impacted but some were also from hot spots. Realistically, people should have been more afraid of us coming from San Diego but they didn’t seem to be. Either way our masks stayed on.
We survived the weekend in Panguitch and then it was off to Idaho where we know the people organizing the Driggs, Idaho rally have been taking every precaution possible to put on a safe rally. More about that to follow.
