On March 4th Mark Brown and I got into the car with our dog Cricket and over a four-day period made our way to a barrier island off the coast of Georgia.
We drove from Easthampton to Scranton, PA, Warrenton, VA, Greensboro, NC, Atlanta, GA, Macon then Saint Simon’s Island visiting near and dears on the way.
On March 9th we got out of the car to discover the sky was falling and there were pieces of it all over the ground. There was a deadly virus, the stock market had tanked and things were going to hell in a handbasket very quickly. It was chaos on the television and like a train wreck hard to look away.
The last real “normal” weekend was the 15th of March with people sitting together (can you imagine?) on outdoor porches drinking green beer. On Monday morning we got up and walked into town to find it eerily quiet. The states began to lock down and close schools and businesses. Fifty percent of the people at our condo complex packed up and left.
We stayed. The weather was beautiful, full spring and blooming everywhere. The beaches were soft and sunny. Panic buying had not yet hit South Georgia so there was toilet paper and great asparagus from Florida. We unpacked the art materials from our car and prepared to ride it out in the tropics.