Good-bye Florida, Hello Maine

The Coronavirus pandemic has everyone in a tailspin, including us.  We debated about staying in Florida or going back to Maine.  We thought, if you have to be quarantined, warm, sunny Florida is a good place to be stuck, sort of.  

On the other hand, if you don't have any supplies (toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc.) and no pantry (sugar, flour, peanut butter, etc.) and the store shelves are empty and you have no friends or family nearby, Florida is not a good place to be stuck.

Regrettably, we made the decision to return home to Maine five weeks early.  I told Bill on Monday, 3/16 that I wanted to go home and we were on the road on Friday, 3/20.  

We worked feverishly to get everything packed and cleaned.  Originally, we were going to leave on Saturday, but a winter storm popped up on the radar for Monday and there was no way I wanted to be traveling through the PA mountains in the snow, so we worked faster and were able to hit the road even earlier.

Traveling wasn't terrible, less traffic, although about half the cars headed north had Ontario plates.  Like us, they wanted to be home.  The hotels were somewhat stressful, considering the virus issue.  However, we were lucky enough to have scored some Clorox wipes, which we took in first and wiped down everything we could think of.  Bill took one side and I took the other.  Only then did we take our bags in.  

We won't get any money back, although we paid our rent through April 17, and I really don't care.  I'm very happy to be home, in our own bed, close to our families and friends.  We have a house we can work in, and a yard we can work in and a neighborhood where we can walk while keeping our distance from others. 

Although we are close to the people we love, we won't be seeing them for at least 14 days.  We agreed to self-quarantine since we had been traveling and that's currently the standard procedure...social distancing.  Strange that words never used together before are on the lips of everyone.

Strange and frightening times, certainly never something I would have thought to be living through.  I pray for my children and their loved ones, our country and our planet.  

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)