In the past two weeks I have done quite a bit of driving. It's important to understand that I'm basically homeless and live where my current seasonal job is. So when Big Sky closed down for the Caronavirus I found myself needing to relocate. My previous blog post was about my cross country drive from Big Sky, Montana, to Miami, Florida to live with my sister. At the time I thought My Outward Bound commitments were cancelled through April 16th. But shortly after arriving in Miami I got the news that all courses and trainings were now cancelled through May 31st. Suddenly I have 2 months to hunker down, and I was coming to realize that Miami was not the best place for me to be. One reason was that living in a studio apartment was definitely less preferable to a house with a yard. The second reason was that once beaches, pools, and tennis courts were finally closed my exercise options were very limited. In fact my outdoors options were very limited, as the middle of the day can be unbearably hot without trees or water. So one morning I woke up and said I need to leave as soon as possible, and two days later I was driving across the country again for the second time in two weeks. On Thursday 4/2 I drove 11 hours to Asheville, NC to set up camp at the NCOBS Town Office. The next morning I had a lovely social distance picnic breakfast with my friend Rachel, a fellow instructor from NCOBS. We talked deep life stuff for a few hours... after all, my love language is quality time, so it was a very renewing and healing morning. In Asheville I also went for a trail run around Lake Powhatan. It was a gorgeous 70 degrees and sunny. I enjoyed being back in the trees and mountains so much. That evening, Rachel and I hiked up around the Craggy Gardens area and sat in a gazebo to watch the sunset. Super awesome day all around. On Saturday 4/4 I drove to Washington, D.C. first. I went for a social distance walk with my friend Lea from high school. Again, hours of deep conversation. Just what I needed! We enjoyed a lovely long walk then I had to be on my way again, as this wasn't my final stop for the day. After D.C. I continued on to Sinking Spring, PA to spend the night with my friend Alli from college. She lives near Reading, PA, which boasts a huge pagoda as its main tourist attraction. So of course we went to see it. I hung around the next day as well before the final leg of the drive home. We went to an old quarry and current recreation area to hike around the trails. This old quarry was super cool because it is currently a public recreation area for climbers, bikers, and hikers. I found walking by the climbing walls to be particularly interesting. This area was called Birdsboro, and there were dozens of routes, mostly sport climbing.
So now I am home in Bedford, MA for the next two months. I do recognize the ethical challenges with my drive. While I was willing to take the risk of traveling, I was definitely not helping to flatten the curve by not staying in one place. I do feel justified, however, in the fact that my only safe healthy permanent home is in Bedford, MA. I'm glad I made a run for it while I still could in order to wait out this wild time in the best possible conditions.
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