32 replies to this topic

[Fernweh]

What are folks planning for summer travel? Will you be staying close to home? Will you try to travel across country and see the classic sights? 

 

Im planning a few trips here in the midwest. Would love to head west to the mountains of the coast.  What's practical, safe and ethical during COVID? 

[ski3pin]

Previous discussions -

 

Go Camping Under Stay at Home Order?

 

Health Scare and Trip Planning

 

Things are certainly in flux now with campgrounds beginning to open and an eagerness to bring business back......................now with this spike in cases some states are requiring quarantine for out of state visitors.

 

What to do is a difficult decision. Take a look at the - John Hopkins US Map -

and look at the rural counties you might be traveling through. When the data is presented in number of cases per 100,000 populations, it can be pretty staggering to see.

 

Lots of people are out and about, I sincerely hope being safe and following all the safety protocols. There are also a lot of very careless people out there, for whatever the reason. As soon as some restrictions were lifted, it appears the general feeling was the whole pandemic was over, at least by what I've personally seen around here.

 

Check what states and counties are requiring on their websites.

 

Also, be aware that many Indian Reservations I've seen have signs up prohibiting any visitors.

 

It will be a tough personal decision for each of us.

 

 

[Fernweh]

Thanks for the links back to folks initial conversations regarding travel. Things are unusual to say the least. We are going to take our time and see what makes the most sense. CDC guidelines seem minimal at best with new outbreaks popping up.  We'd be looking for remote places and keep our interactions to a minimum. 

 

I'll keep watching for more posts and get a handle what to do next.

[lqhikers]

My take on life as it is now, and in the future.

I have been part of this forum since i think since 2007.

For myself and my wife we consider it as a online social club and never planed on meeting in person 

fellow members.

The whole idea of wander the west is to explore and share experience's learned from such trips. 

We have always traveled and explored by ourselves since we never plan on how long or where we go.

So knowing this i feel that letting the media,  internet, politicians control our life is giving up, which we 

are not going to do.

Once we understood how the now and future is to be we have continued our normal routine.

They say cut out travel, we do not travel (planes,  cruise ships, groups, trains ) which to me means

dealing with crowds, people, restaurants, hotels, etc.

when we leave on our trips (average 5-12 days once a month) we are stocked up with all needed

supplies the only social contact we have is at gas fill up time, if you want to call that social contact

its ok.

Except for a couple of months in the summer all of our trips are desert trips mostly remote sites

that we have stockpiled over the years ,yes some have been found by others so we delete these from our

list and seem to be able to find new sites with no problems.

Even in the summer when we do go to the mountains there is no problems as most of you know to find

remote under used sites to spend time and yes if other people show up we do not complain we just load up

and find another spot.

 

I know our attitude sounds self serving and it might be but it does not infringe on your rights 

which is important to us.

 

Just my thoughts on life as it is now, yours may differ!

 

Les,lqhikers

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Thanks Les for your insight. Glad it works for you.You are conscious

of others and your/their health.

Seems like a lot of people don't share that way of life,and it's all about them.

 

Ski thanks for the info.

Safe travels to all.

Frank

[lqhikers]

Expanding on my earlier post i would like to share some of the reasons we ended up 

going the direction we went.

 

Each of us most likely live in different groups of people depending on location.

We live in a resort area where all the connecting towns are tourist driven.

with this in mind we are surrounded by s.t.r (short time rentals know as air b&b's).

This brings a new group of people on a daily basis that come here to relax and party,

it is their right and i support it as it is what drive's our economy.

 

Knowing this we have adjusted our daily routine of lifestyle so as not expose us 

the coved-19 problem.

 

We live on the edge of our city next to a vast open desert /mtn area with hiking trails that draw

locals and tourist's, with this happening we no longer hike or walk the trails etc that are poplar.

we have found that people do not respect other's right and to many do not maintain distance or wear face covering.

 

Our early morning exercise is now limited to walking away from said trails and now we put in our miles 

on the streets , hardly any traffic and no tourist's. boring but keeps us in shape.

As life long swimmers lap after lap! our great swim center is closed and i wonder if it will ever open again.

 Hope this explains somewhat how we ended up going ahead with our life.

We understand we only have this life to live and we plan on doing it to the max.

 

Les,lqhikers

[Fernweh]

Les, I appreciate your take on things and I hope we can all figure out what we need to do to make the traveling we love work. Finding isolated places in the desert or on a mountain is of paramount enjoyment.  Gaining a perspective on how others do this is the benefit of this site and others like it. To wander is to explore and to explore is to seek places and experiences that make us who we are. 

I hope we can all find that place that gives us what we need. 

 

Fernweh,

 

Jim

[AWG_Pics]

We are keeping a low profile at the moment. The virus is surging here in Oregon and all the adjacent states, so we are staying home and doing our many projects here around home. To stay fit my wife does yoga, online and on her own, while we both do pilates with a trusted instructor via Zoom. It is a different life than I had anticipated, but we are both retired and fortunate enough to afford to sit this out. We will venture out to the eastern oregon empty lands once the people that resist facemasks and social distancing have finally accepted the reality of our new existence. But too many people are too slow to learn for us to consider it safe for them or us to go out and about yet.

 

I do take the truck out from time to time to make sure it is operating smoothly. And I occasionally pop up the camper and run things for a day or two to make sure no faults have crept into the workings.

 

I think things are not always going to be as bad as they are now. People will slowly learn, but learn they will, most of them anyway. It is hard to change an entire way of life suddenly.

 

As the late great Merle Haggard once sang: "The good times ain't over for good."

Edited by AWG_Pics, 26 June 2020 - 04:50 PM.

[Smokecreek1]

Okay gang, I just back from my first trip out this year-in my case , a week long run up to Res."C" on the Devils' Garden on the Modoc NF. It was great to be out-that over, here is what I saw and this is what determined what I did and didn't do! Most of you know I live up here in Lassen County in NE Ca with both Nevada and Oregon with in spitting distance! Every thing I did was determined by the unusual weather , how I felt and what each county and state and the feds said I could do! Everything but dry camping was closed down in all 3 states until the other day.. Being 75, I followed all the rules the best I could and intend to make 76. NE Ca has no recorded Convid-19 cases and only a few positive tests and has missed this outbreak so far.

At res. C, the only ones that were required to use masks were the USFS, although everyone I saw sort of followed the social distancing rules with those they did not know. There was a normal visible USFS presence! The bathroom was clean and well maintained. Most people come here to day fish and watch the wildlife, and I saw rigs from Ca, Or and Nevada. There were never more than 2 other campers there and maybe 2-4 boats on the res. fishing and except for Saturday, I had the place mostly to my self! came home yesterday!

I had planned to go over to the Sheldon NWR next week but there is talk of a new outbreak soon, so I think i will wait the two weeks and see what happens and hope I did not catch anything but at least I got out once!

Smoke

Edited by Smokecreek1, 26 June 2020 - 06:21 PM.

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Les I liked your "expanded" post.

We also live in a tourist area Monterey Bay.And yes I understand that all

the tourist $s help fund a lot of the great things we have here.

I just would like to see more people be respectful of others health.

 

Our house is in the "farm" land area close to the ocean.

We are fortunate to have a great walking area,our county streets.

There is a lot of wildlife and only a handful pf people out walking.

 

Also being retired is a plus.

Stay healthy and fit.

Frank