I may have sounded rather cavalier about the coronavirus crisis in the last blog; keep in mind I actually wrote it a week earlier than it appeared. In any case on the actual March 18 we were sitting in the sun outside our trailer in Millerton Lake State Park blissfully unaware of world events and contemplating booking another day when a State Parks police officer dropped by to tell us we had to leave in the morning as they were closing all State Parks..
The next morning we were headed north listening to National Public Radio and realized how serious the situation had become. California schools were closed, all public events were cancelled and Canada had agreed to close the border to all but essential travel. So we made a run for the border along with a lot of other BC snowbirds, comparing notes at highway rest stops along the I5.
We overnighted just before the Oregon border at the Yreka rest stop.
The next day we drove 1100 km in 12 hours through Oregon and Washington. The plus side of the crisis was that traffic was down 40 percent in the Seattle area due to self-isolation according to NPR. We were able to drive through downtown Seattle during rush hour with no traffic snarls for the first time in 30 years.
Once we were north of Seattle, the highway signs changed to read "Border closes at 9 pm to all but essential travel." We made it across at 8 pm. The customs officer asked us if we had any symptoms and told us to self-isolate for 14 days. We parked for the night at Costco and drove home the next morning.
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