12 months of travel in times of COVID and predictions for 2021

It all started where it often does: at home with my family. As I teacher I work hard and I like rewarding myself for my hard work. I was looking forward to two GREAT trips this year: Japan on Spring break and Germany for the first five weeks of summer break. There would be time to think about the annual fall foliage day trips and Thanksgiving break later. I never thought that I was wrong about what was coming, or what was probably already here, waiting to make an explosion. The first "trip" was going back to work in Odessa in early January.

In February we had a leak followed by a snowstorm that left my apartments without water for almost three days. Luckily Mr. Bushman, the main owner of MCM Hotels gave us a gift card to use in his hotels and businesses. I had planned to use the remaining money in his restaurants but one of his hotels happened to be two blocks away from where I live. I stayed there for three nights starting right when the rain was turning to snow. While the snow was falling and school was cancelled I remember watching the news in the hotel and hearing something about a new coronavirus. That was in China, way too far from here, nothing that would ruin my plans to visit Japan a month later, I thought. About two weeks later my dad turned 60. Flight prices were cheap so I went back home to celebrate his birthday, while still looking forward to traveling to Japan:

At the end of February I started getting e-mails about cancelled tours and closed museums that I was planning to visit about ten days later, including the Teamlab Borderless in Tokyo. 

It was around March 2nd, days before I was scheduled to cross the pacific ocean for the first time when I learned that postponing my trip for Thanksgiving break would cost 70 cents, so I did that. Why would I spend 13+ hours sitting on a plane twice just to visit the exterior places in Japan? As beautiful as I believe it is, I know I would've still wanted to visit these museums and I would've wanted to go back even if I would've taken this trip. For my own mental health I could not stay home, I had to find another place to go. The first place that I thought about visiting was the cathedral of Saint Louis, so I made arrangements to drive there, finding nice art museums, churches, and state capitols along the way before meeting my parents in Austin as my last stop before going back to Odessa, as they coincidentally had a conference there. While I was in Austin, I learned that school had been cancelled due to this new virus. There was no virtual work the first week other than a meeting where we were told not to "worry" about activities as all of the work would be provided for us to assign. The lessons were crappy at best, but that was the time when I started learning how to deal with the online platforms that I would get to use starting in August. To forget about this newly started 400 quarantine days I ended the month visiting Big Bend National Park and Monahans Sandhills the next day without staying at possibly dangerous hotels. I had barely ordered face masks just in case (we still had mixed messages), but they were not set to arrive until May 27 due to extremely high demand.  

By April I was not feeling so well by being stuck at home, so I ended up visiting the Davis Mountains on Good Friday, this time with a reusable face mask, as I was now aware of its protective benefits. There is not much you can do over there, especially when the McDonald observatory is closed, but you can see some trees, mountains, hills, and scenic views. I took that day off in order to do this, as I did not call parents or grade any online work that day.

It was early May. On the one hand I was looking forward to an end to this online mess on May 21st, but on the other hand, I was not looking forward to being off and not being able to meet with friends for dinner, visiting my family, or traveling safely. I was running out of options for day trips so I went to the last place that I could think of: Marfa. 

My parents wanted me to go visit them in June, but distancing myself and spending the first two weeks inside my room (now the guest room), which I agreed to. But before doing that I felt a little more comfortable driving by myself, staying in hotels, and avoiding crowds by visiting National Parks and a few reduced capacity museums by wearing a mask. After a 12 day trip I flew back home around mid-June. At the end of June I started normal life inside the house and running errands as needed, but with a face mask.

Except for a day trip to Cuatro Ciénegas, I stayed home in July. I accidentally learned how to make nice pictures even nicer. This was because the water at the pond did not look as blue as it did the last time I went there in early 2017. In learning how to partially fix this, I learned how to enhance colors and make pictures look more real. THANKS COVID!

In early August it was time to go back. Days before that I learned that international travelers needed a 14 day quarantine from school starting on the day of arrival. American Airlines messed up its schedule and made most connections coming from Monterrey to Dallas become overnight connections as their only scheduled departure was at 5:30 PM, which was not enough time to make connections to many places. I changed my connection for the next day  and visited a few museums in Fort Worth that were now open. This was hours before flying to Midland (the city that is right next to Odessa). I was able to attend staff development from home, and for the first time ever I kept the same classroom as the year before, so while I needed to have a sub for the first few days, a requested work order to hook up the computer, printer, and projector was all that was needed to start the daily lessons right, or as best as we could. Finding my classroom exactly as I left it back in March was a blessing:

Labor day weekend (early in September) was the perfect time to visit the museums in San Antonio and Austin that closed on March 13 (I was planning to visit those on March 14).

The second weekend of October is the time in which bigtooth maples in Cloudcroft show their best fall colors. It's been like that for the past six fall seasons at least. Normally, yellow quaking aspens are showing their brightest yellow colors as well. As it happened to be a long weekend, I was also able to go and visit the Manzano mountains near Albuquerque, which also has bigtooth maples. According to several posts on Facebook, bigtooth maples were changing colors quickly in the Guadalupe Mountains and they were doing it earlier than usual, so a week later I visited both Devil's Hall and Dog Canyon on the same day. This was the third weekend of October. On the fourth weekend of October I visited McKittrick Canyon (another area in the Guadalupe Mountains) were colors were near peak, but you could tell that trees were stressed: there was more brown than yellow. October 31st was part of the fifth weekend of October. I visited Palo Duro Canyon as I need to teach about its formation. Cottonwoods and mesquites were turning brown instead of yellow, so trees were probably stressed as well, but due to the drought, not COVID of course!

The following week I visited the Museum of the Southwest in Midland in order to possibly plan a field trip once COVID allows (if I get to stay in Odessa next year). A Spanish friend recommended the petroleum museum, and I must say that it was definitely worth it: minerals, art galleries, cars, and more! I saw everything but petroleum. This was the fifth weekend of travel in a row, and I was tired! By the end of the third week of November I flew to the eastern US for Thanksgiving week. I used the money that I had from that trip in Japan that never took place. I went there looking for European Art. I missed most of it as most of the museums that I was most looking forward to closed a day or two before I arrived, but the trip was still worth it.

Now December, this is the twelfth straight month of travel. It might've been a day trip, or simple flying between Monterrey and Odessa, but it feels nice to get out of town and even act like a tourist when no one else is visiting some places, including your own hometown:

While traveling, visiting my family (quarantining first), and meeting with friends outdoors every now and then has helped me somewhat whether the pandemic, I know that not everyone has been that lucky. Most of what we show on social media may show our best moments of joy. If you have not had that luck, I pray that 2021 will be a better year for you. Being able to achieve that so called normality will mean that those who really needed government help no longer do. I pray and hope that 2021 will be the year in which we as a society have the greatest economic comeback. While seeing people not wear their masks, not wear them correctly, or see them take these off to talk to someone or make a phone call makes me angry, I hope that some of us have learned to be more empathic and selfless. 

I foresee most people getting vaccinated and the government and/or some employers making vaccines mandatory once vaccines are widely available later next year. I hope that only those who have had allergic reactions (which should be a minority) get the exception. I also hope that the government and or the vaccine manufacturers help take care of anyone experiencing any severe symptoms. We need herd immunity, we need it quickly, and we need to do it while minimizing hospitalizations and deaths. I believe that safe and effective vaccines will get us there. While early 2021 will be tragic, I am looking forward to a much better 2021 and beyond! This will be the year where we'll get to hug our family members and friends again, where all of my students will be safely back in my classroom, where we'll hopefully resume intercontinental tourism in a safe way, where most or all small businesses will recover, and where most people who have lost their job due to the pandemic will get back to work. Sooner or later, better days are coming, and I just can't wait!

Escape al este de Estados Unidos

El estrés del trabajo como maestro, junto con los nuevos requisitos burocráticos innecesarios en la escuela y el estrés de la pandemia (junto con todos los imbéciles, egoístas e ignorantes que no saben ponerse bien la mascarilla o que sabiendo hacerlo se la quitan) hacen a uno querer escaparse. Al estar cerrado en general el continente europeo vi la manera de ir a las ciudades que más elementos europeos tienen y que no había visto antes. Empezando por Filadelfia, donde se robaron un pedazo de París y lo anclaron en medio de una extensión de Nueva York:

Aquí cerraron los museos cuatro días antes de llegar, y aunque el gobernador pidió hacer cuarentena tres días antes de que yo llegara no pude hacerme el examen del coronavirus porque solamente podia hacérmelo en horas de trabajo. En vez de ver los museos que tienen arte europeo me fui a Longwood Gardens, a unos 45 minutos de Filadelfia:

Bendito Uber, es todo lo que necesitas para ir a Wilmington y alrededores, empezando por Winterthur (Antigua mansion de los dueños de DuPont) y el Delaware Art Museum:

Al estar cerrados los museos el lunes, y en general también los martes, este acuario en Camden, Nueva Jersey estaba abierto, al igual que la Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción:

Hubo chansa de pasearme un rato en Filadelfia y visitar la catedral y basilica de San Pedro y San Pablo, al igual que el museo de arte por fuera antes de ir a cenar al Wegmans (el mejor super de Estados Unidos) y regresar a ver el centro de Filadelfia de noche:

El martes fui a Harrisburg y Hershey. Aunque ya había ido a Hershey necesitaba regalos chuscos para el intercambio de regalos. Empecé viendo el capitolio de Pennsylvania por fuera y luego la catedral de San Patricio antes de pasarme a Hershey donde la entrada la tenía reservada por hora:

Ya de regreso en Harrisburg me metí al capitolio antes de caminar y buscar un lugar exterior para cenar, y esto fue lo mejor del viaje por varias razones. Entre ellas la entrada es gratis, fui el único que estaba turisteando, así que sentí que abrieron este lugar solo para mi, y sobre todo, la increíble arquitectura interior. No creo haber visitado otro capitolio más padre por dentro:

Después de dos horas de retraso (gracias Greyhound, a la otra mejor me voy en tren) llegué a Baltimore con la ingrata noticia de que el museo The Walters estaba cerrado a partir de ese día, pero pude visitar el Baltimore Museum of Art, el acuario al que fui hace tres años y medio y disfrutar de ver los maples rojos y naranjas y los ginkgos amarillos en la calle:

Algún día habría que ir a la Mansión Biltmore en Asheville, Carolina del Norte. Esta es la mansión privada más grande de Estados Unidos. Me esperaba más de este lugar con costo de primera clase, pero queda palomeada:

Finalmente Atlanta. Esta ciudad tenía practicamente todos los lugares abiertos, a excepción de CNN (por eso no compré el City Pass), y aunque estuviera abierto, no estaba en mi lista de prioridades. Empecé por los alrededores del parque conmemorativo a las olimpiadas del 96, el museo de la Coca, el jardín botánico (con las luces navideñas de noche y otra vez al día siguiente con luz de día), el museo de arte High, Swan House, la catedral y el acuario:

Consciente de que estamos en medio de una pandemia usé la mascarilla en todos los lugares interiores públicos. También en lugares exteriores donde había mucha gente. Creo que si al menos el 90% de las personas hiciera lo que yo hice, este virus estaría bastante más controlado y la economía estaría mucho mejor porque no habría necesidad de tener tantos lugares cerrados. Por esa gente a la que le hace falta empatía no voy a dejar de disfrutar las pocas libertades que quedan, pero voy a hacerlo con la mayor precaución posible. Busco ayudarme a mi mismo, y a la vez ayudar a negocios y asociaciones sin fines de lucro (museos).