Blue View – A Road Trip During the Pandemic

A pandemic era roadtrip - lots of trucks but few cars

As Marcie wrote in her last blog, we found ourselves on an unexpected 3000+ mile road trip this past week. I thought I’d relate how things have changed since the PP (Pre-Pandemic) road trip days, the preparations we made and the measures we took to, hopefully, prevent becoming infected with the virus.

Prepping for the Trip

Blue’s interior sans camping upfit

Blue was, of course, fairly well fitted out as a camper van. He had a double bed, refrigerator, composting toilet and a lot of storage. When we first discussed with my sister Karen what all was to be moved, we thought that we’d only have to remove the mattress and storage bins under the bed to make enough room for all her things. The list of things grew exponentially as we got closer to the move date, however, so we ended up removing almost everything from Blue’s interior, and converting him back to a cargo van. Almost all the upfitting was designed to make this possible, so the removal of everything took only a day.

We were paranoid about using public restrooms, so we purchased a small, portable toilet, and since we no longer had a refrigerator, we also took a small cooler. To help with moving and for securing the load, we took a small hand truck, a furniture dolly, and a bag of small rope and bungees.

Finally, we made sure we had plenty of disposable gloves, our masks, lots of hand sanitizer, alcohol and a spray bottle, and two containers of disinfectant wipes.

Masks and Social Distancing

Despite the obvious encouragement, not everyone in New mexico wears a mask

As is the case here in Las Vegas, I’d estimate that about only about 60%-75% of people we encountered in groceries and while walking were wearing masks. This seemed to be true, even when grocery stores had signs requesting customers to wear masks. In New Mexico, which is seeing a large Covid-19 spike, the digital highway signs informed drivers that the wearing of masks was required in public places… but we saw just as many people without masks as elsewhere. The same is true with social distancing. Most people seem to understand and comply with the concept, but there are always a few who either don’t get it or don’t care. If only there was a nice way of saying, “Hey, if you’re right and if you’re being unnecessarily inconvenienced by the social distancing guidelines, a year from now we can all laugh at how we over-reacted. On the other hand, if all the epidemiologists and infectious disease experts are right, then one of us may die because you choose not to comply.”

Traffic

As expected, there was considerably less auto traffic on the interstates, but the number of trucks hasn’t lessened at all… which is a good thing, of course. Based on the eighteen-wheeler traffic we saw on I-40 and I-80, we needn’t worry about the country’s supply chain; the trucks are definitely moving goods.

Hotels

Before we left, we weren’t sure that hotels were even open. We called a couple in the places we planned to stop, and fortunately, all were open. We asked about what measures they were taking to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Most replied that all employees were wearing masks, that the rooms were thoroughly disinfected between guests, that the front desk was wiped down after each check-in, and social distancing was encouraged between people in common areas. That sounded promising, but the reality varied considerably between properties. Let’s start with the front desks: we were heartened and reassured by the measures some were taking… employees wearing masks, plexiglass panels between the desk clerk and customers, the smell of alcohol at the counter, and even two bins of pens, one labeled “Sanitized Pens” and another labeled “Used Pens”. On the other extreme, at one hotel, the clerk wasn’t masked, the same pen was handled by the clerk, by the customer ahead of us and who knows how many others before that, and we certainly didn’t see any sign that the counter had been wiped down anytime in recent memory.

Our sanitizing kit

Marcie busy sanitizing our room

The CDC now says that the chance of contracting Covid-19 from contaminated surfaces is low. However, they also originally said masks were not recommended for anyone other than medical workers and first responders, and a few weeks later totally reversed that position... so we erred on the side of caution. Thinking that the virus doesn’t survive long on surfaces, we requested rooms that hadn’t been used in the last 72 hours. A couple of the hotels cheerfully complied, or at least assured us, true or not, that no one had been in our assigned room within the last couple of days. Others told us there was no way of knowing which rooms had been occupied in the last couple of days, or because of the low occupancy rate, only a small number of their rooms were being used, and it wasn’t possible to fulfill our request.

Given the variability in how the desk clerks adhered to the hotels’ stated safety practices, we assumed the worst when it came to how well the rooms were sanitized. We set up a small ‘sanitizing station’ in Blue, and before moving anything into our room, we went in armed with a spray bottle of alcohol and a container of disinfectant wipes and sprayed/wiped every surface we might possibly touch, paying particular attention to light switches, door handles, tv remote, phone, toilet and sink. Based on how dirty the wipes were after our own sanitizing pass in some of the hotels, I think it was worth the effort. Once we were done with our room, we repeated the process on Karen’s room.

I don’t think of myself as a germaphobe, but one of my concerns even in normal times, is that while the sheets and pillowcases are probably washed between guests, I doubt that the bedspread and blankets are routinely, if ever washed. How many hairy, naked asses have plopped down on that bedspread? In the PP days, I’d fold down the bedspread and try not think too much about the likelihood that the blanket was also ass-contaminated. (I did, however, discontinue the 30 second rule for anything that dropped on it.) On this trip, one of us donned gloves, then carefully removed and folded the bedspread and blanket, and tucked them away in the closet. We brought our own blanket – unfortunately, we forgot to pack it one morning and it was left behind along the way. It wasn’t really necessary, as it turned out, we did just fine without a blanket.

Breakfast was handled differently at different properties as well. Some hotels simply discontinued breakfasts entirely. Others provided to-go bags with a wrapped apple, granola bar, a danish and a bottle of water. A couple provided free room service – simply call the front desk in the morning, order whatever was to your liking, and it was delivered in plastic to-go boxes by masked, gloved and gowned wait staff. Not bad at all.

Gas Stations

The biggest positive of this trip, other than the lack of traffic, was the price of diesel. The least expensive we encountered was $1.60/gal. We put on our gloves and masks to pump the fuel and to clean all the bugs off the windshield. To avoid going inside and handling cash, we paid by credit card at the pump, then tossed out the gloves when we were done.

Pumping diesel in the days of the pandemic

Groceries

Grocery stores enroute were no different than here. Some requested that customers wear masks, encouraged social distancing, and limited the number of customers in the store at any given time. Others paid lip service to the guidelines, but paid no attention to the number of customers inside nor did they expect patrons or employees to wear masks.

Rest Stops

A number of rest stops were closed, and some only allowed truckers. The ones that were open were generally clean and pleasant. We were quite surprised by most of the restrooms. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, they were clean, well stocked and essentially touch-less, except for stall doors and our own parts.

Covid-19 Testing

On our return, we were concerned that although we are both asymptomatic at present, there was a reasonable possibility that we were exposed to the coronavirus. Before putting our family members here in Las Vegas at risk, we called our doctor, explained to her about our trip, and she ordered testing for both of us. We are self-isolating in a vacant condo until the test results come back in 2-4 days.

I’d like a Big Mac, order of fries and a throat swab…

Back to Normal

As soon as we’re cleared, we’ll be moving back home. Blue will have to be reassembled as a camper again, but this may be a good opportunity to finish a few upfitting projects that have been pending. I want to finish installing the flooring, and I’ve almost completed some new cabinets and drawers, both of which are more easily installed now that Blue’s interior is disassembled.

Stay tuned and stay healthy...

Post script: Thanks to everyone who has been following our unexpected road trip and wondered about the results of our coronavirus testing. Thankfully, we're both negative! That's positive, right?