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Nadine Walks

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COVID Road-Tripping: what it was like to travel in the US during a pandemic

November 21, 2020

I was reading a post recently from a very successful travel blogger. I’ve never followed his blog but he gets mentioned a lot in the travel blogging industry, and I occasionally read a post or two of interest. Something led me to his site- I can’t even remember what- but the thing that caught my eye was a post on his experience traveling in the US during the pandemic.

He road-tripped this summer, mostly along the east coast, and his conclusion was that he probably wouldn’t do something like it again (not during a pandemic, anyway). There was some fear about catching the virus in places where cases were spiking, but overall, his assessment seemed to be based more on the closed attractions, not being able to be a last minute traveler, not getting the chance to interact with and meet people, feeling lonely.

These are all perfectly valid reasons to not have a great time on a trip, especially if the kind of travel you’re used to is flying by the seat of your pants, lots of interactions with locals, seeing the popular/major sites, etc.

But my initial reaction was to want to come to my own blog to write about my impressions of what it was like to travel the US during COVID-19, because so much of what I came away with was very different.

 

I wrote just one post about my road trip, and it was filled with imagery more than anything, and short on specific details. While my trip wasn’t perfect, while it wasn’t all I had once imagined it could be, while there are things I would have done differently… I had a really good time. And since I haven’t written much about this trip, I thought this would be a good time to talk about what it was like, and why I maybe had a much better time exploring the US this summer than this top travel blogger.

Lone horse in a field at Little Bighorn National Monument, Montana

I think, in some part, it was about expectations. We’re in a pandemic, so just the decision to travel at all took a lot of time, and thought. I weighed it all: what was my risk, was it possible to travel and mitigate my risk based on my itinerary, my activities, my route? Should I travel alone, should I travel with others? Should I visit friends and family? When should I go?

Not everyone would make the same decisions that I did. Some wouldn’t have traveled at all, some would have done a smaller trip. Some would have done a bigger trip, or done things differently: hit the more famous National Parks, stopped in on friends. 

But for me, it was about deciding what I was comfortable with, and then I let that guide how I was going to build my trip. I lowered my expectations. I let go of the idea that this (almost) cross-country trip would ever come close to what I had been imagining for so many years.

Because this trip has been a long time in the making. It goes back to when I was a kid, to when I read the Little House on the Prairie books and dreamed of what it would be like to cross the prairie in a covered wagon.

Little House on the Prairie book on porch, Kansas

My image of this trip has grown larger and larger over the years, and it’s taken on many versions: the Little House pilgrimage, but also a tour of Major League ballparks, a tour of the National Parks, staying with friends and family as much as possible, hitting the most off-beat roadside attractions, eating a slice of pie in as many diners as possible.

There have been so many versions of the trip in my head that, even in non-pandemic times, I never would have been able to do it all.

But even in limited circumstances, I decided I wanted to give it a go, and see what I could see. I reduced it down to that: to a road trip, a chance to get in my car and drive for thousands of miles, and see where the road would take me. I would see what I could see.

I did some research, I planned out a route, I checked to see what might be open, I gave myself a theme. I might not be able to see a baseball game or visit friends on the West Coast or hike in the biggest National Parks, but I would do a Laura Ingalls Wilder pilgrimage, focusing on the mid-west.

This was a good plan. Aside from one small museum in De Smet, Little House stuff was open, the attractions were all there: the dugout on the banks of Plum Creek, the cluster of cottonwoods that Pa planted for the family, the surveyor’s house and schoolhouse in De Smet, Pa’s fiddle, Pa’s hand-dug well, Laura’s writing desk, a ride in a covered wagon. From Minnesota to South Dakota to Kansas to Missouri, I saw (almost) all.

Pa's hand-dug well from Little House on the Prairie, Independence, Kansas

My sister joined me for the first part of the trip, and most of the Little House stuff. I’d initially intended to do the trip alone, but having my sister with me for the beginning worked out perfectly. At the end of the trip, I stopped at the beach in North Carolina to spend a few more days with family, but otherwise, I stayed solo. I got so many messages and texts from friends as they saw my posts on social media, offering to meet up, offering me a place to stay. I was deeply touched by these invitations- some from friends that I’ve never even met before (a few a result of this blog!)- and if there wasn’t a pandemic raging I would have absolutely made the effort to visit people. But I made a rule for myself- only family- and this felt good.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but I think it made me feel more settled in doing a big road trip. COVID was always on my mind, but by staying mostly solo, I felt like I could keep my risk down (as well as not risk others!).

And despite being alone for a lot of the trip, I didn’t feel lonely. It helps that I like to travel solo, that I already have a lot of experience with it. And maybe, again, it was about expectations: I didn’t expect that I would meet people and make new friends (not that this couldn’t have happened, I just didn’t expect it), and so having a mostly solo trip didn’t disappoint me. I had some really nice interactions along my way, but it was no big deal to keep mostly to myself.

Baby bison in Wind Cave National Park
One of the “friends” I made along my journey!

Little House was the theme, but I incorporated other stuff, too: a couple of National Parks, Mount Rushmore and Devil’s Tower. The Field of Dreams movie site, Buddy Holly’s Crash site, a Frank Lloyd Wright house, hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

There were a few things that were closed. The Surf Ballroom, for instance, the site of Buddy Holly’s last concert before his plane crash, was closed (despite the website saying it would be open). My sister and I would have loved to go in, but it was okay: we took pictures outside, had lunch on a bench with a view of Clear Lake, and then a beautiful drive through cornfields to find the crash site. The Frank Lloyd Wright house was closed, too, but this wasn’t even on our radar! We’d just been driving to our next destination and saw signs for Cedar Rock and decided to detour. We were still able to hike out to the property and stop by the visitor’s center and I think this was a highlight for both of us.

Maybe I had a really good time because I didn’t expect to be able to do it all. Maybe I had a really good time because the whole point was the road.

Dirt road in Kansas

And oh, what a road!

Is the United States not the very best place in the world for a long road trip? You don’t need open attractions for a road trip. You just need a car that runs and eyes that are open to the wonder that’s all around. The pandemic doesn’t stop an eagle soaring through the sky, it doesn’t stop a sunrise from shining through the doorframe of an abandoned building. In my case, it didn’t stop me from drinking bad gas station coffee, or an ice-cold coke from a styrofoam cup, or a couple of beers on the porch of a little white cottage in Kansas. It didn’t stop me from hiking through the mountains or picking wildflowers or walking through tall prairie grass or seeing a field full of bison.

Sunrise and abandoned building in Formoso, Kansas

I wrote this reflection about one of my favorite moments of the trip, just after I’d say goodbye to my sister in Rapid City, SD, and continued on towards North Dakota:

“My sister heads home and I continue on, now just me in my little white car and the great stretch of open road. I’m in the very northwestern corner of the state and it seems like there is nothing up here, nothing but the subtly rolling land and I think that I can see forever. The window is down, the sun shines in through the passenger side and warms my right arm. Gas station coffee and Tom Petty’s ‘Wildflowers’ playing and there isn’t another car or person here but me. Then a fox in the field to my right, and five minutes later, soaring in the sky to my left, a bald eagle. I let out a great and loud cheer when I see the eagle and it feels incredible: there are eagles and foxes here? I see deer, maybe mule deer and one stands close to the road, with great big horns. A small one darts out in front of my car but passes to the other side unscathed. After miles and miles of nothing, a small building on the side of the road. A little country diner. I walk inside and the woman running the place asks what I want for breakfast. She goes in the back and fries up an egg, and some sausage, and toasts an English muffin and it might be the best sandwich I’ve ever had. I ask her about the fox and the eagle, still wondering if I’d imagined them, but she confirms that you can see them up here. “You can see a lot of things here,” she says, “if you look closely.” “

All told, I traveled a little over 6,000 miles in 21 days. My route: Pennsylvania -> Ohio -> Indiana -> Illinois -> Iowa -> Minnesota -> South Dakota -> North Dakota -> Montana -> Wyoming -> Nebraska -> Kansas -> Missouri -> Kentucky -> Tennessee -> North Carolina -> back home to Pennsylvania. A couple states- Illinois and Kentucky- I just passed through on the way to the next stop. 

This map doesn’t show the exact route I took, but it’s pretty close. 

map of road trip route, 2020

With regards to COVID-19, overall, I felt relatively safe. I think the worst experience was towards the very beginning of the trip; after I picked up my sister in Cleveland, we did a big day of driving in order to move ourselves west. The plan was to drive through the rest of Ohio, then Indiana, Illinois, and well into Iowa before stopping for the night. I’d looked at the map and thought a nice place to stretch our legs would be Indiana Dunes National Park, which sits on stretch of shore along Lake Michigan. Our timing was bad: it was a Saturday and we arrived at the park around lunchtime. Everyone was out. It was a summer day during a pandemic and finding a green spot or, better yet, a little stretch of sand along a big lake was what everyone had in mind. Really, it was one of the only things to do! My sister and I headed towards the start of a small trail just as it started to rain, and it truly felt like there was a mass exodus of people leaving the beach. We weaved in and out of groups of people, dodging beach chairs and inflatables, trying out best to keep our distance. I would say the majority of people weren’t wearing masks. I remember that my sister and I looked at each other and wondered if this trip was a good idea.

It went uphill from there (quite literally, ha!). We found our trail and climbed up a long series of stairs and because the light rain had scared most people away, we had the trail mostly to ourselves. At the top we looked out over the lake to a hazy view of the Chicago skyline, then continued on the loop to get back to where we started. We had to walk for a short stretch on the beach, and this, too, felt harrowing: hundreds of people were crammed onto a tiny stretch of sand. Going from months of isolation to a scene like this was jolting.

Indiana Dunes National Park, beach crowd, summer 2020

This was the only time on my trip that I felt like I was around far too many people. A few other spots had a lot of people, but they never felt too bad. At Mount Rushmore, there was plenty of room for people to space out, and my sister and I quickly moved past where people were lingering and to the much more quiet and spacious Presidential Trail that loops around under the mountain sculpture. Wall Drug (in Wall, SD) is a huge general store/shopping/eating area, and while I don’t regret stopping, I think because of the pandemic I didn’t quite feel at ease. Too many people there for the free ice water and 5 cent coffee (myself included)!

But in general, I think the theme of my trip suited a pandemic: a pilgrimage to the prairie, walking and hiking in wide open spaces. It was difficult to not want to keep driving west, especially when I hit Montana/Wyoming, and I could feel- strongly- that I wanted to see the mountains. 5 more hours and I could have been in Yellowstone! But I decided to stick to smaller, lesser known parks, and it was a good decision.

A highlight of the trip was Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It’s a similar landscape to Badlands (maybe not quite as dramatic, but still so beautiful), but with far less people. At times I felt as though I had the park to myself! 

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Unit

I mostly stayed in hotels, along with a couple of Airbnbs (I’d planned to do some camping, but without a camp stove and after long days of driving, I often just wanted to find a cheap hotel and not have to worry about setting up a tent). I’d had a little worry over what it would be like to stay in hotels on this trip, but again, overall, it was fine. You could add an extra layer of caution by cleaning/wiping down surfaces in the hotel rooms yourself, but I never did. I’d say the biggest downside to staying in hotels during a pandemic is that most of the amenities weren’t available: namely, breakfast! It’s nice to be able to fuel up at the hotel before starting the day, saving both time and money. Some hotels that typically have breakfast available didn’t have anything to offer, most others handed out a brown bag with a piece of fruit, bottle of water, and a granola bar (Nature Valley, always Nature Valley!). It was something, but it certainly wasn’t a hot waffle.

Summer 2020 road trip hotel packed breakfast

Masks were another thing that were practically nonexistent. The further west I went, the less masks I saw. Most business owners wore them, but often I’d walk into a gas station being one of the only people wearing one. Even though this was back in July, it seems like not much has changed in some parts of the country with regards to mask-wearing. There are big stretches of the States where people don’t believe in the risk of COVID-19, or else don’t believe it will ever reach them.

Sometimes, I questioned whether I should be out there, traveling at all. Sitting here back at home, months later (and with the world still very much in the thick of this pandemic), I’m glad I decided to go. I tried to make smart decisions and stay careful and safe: washing hands, sanitizing, masks in public, takeout dinners back in my hotel rooms, solo hikes in the great outdoors. 

I think about where we might be in summer 2021, and as much as I want to say that I’ll be in the middle of a Camino in Spain, followed up by a few weeks in the mountains of France… I’m not sure. I’m hopeful, but it’s too soon to say. What I do know, however, is that if I can’t travel to Europe or somewhere else further afield, there’s still so much more exploring to do in my own country.

I’m still dreaming of travel, but now- in addition to planning long walks in Europe- I’m adding more US road-tripping to my list: Rt 66 and the Southwest, the vineyards of Northern California, a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon.

But for the time being, I’m sitting tight. It’s time to ride out this next wave of the pandemic and stick to local explorations. But I do wonder what my next trip will be like, if it will be another masked and socially-distanced road trip, or if it might feel a little more like the summers I’m used to: walking down a long path in Europe. Is anyone else dreaming about trips in 2021? Where is the first place you’ll go when it feels safe enough to travel?

Sunrise on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Sunrise hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains, NC

 

2 Comments / Filed In: Travel
Tagged: adventure, American road trip, Blue Ridge Mountains, hiking, Little Bighorn National Monument, Little House on the Prairie, pandemic, road trip, summer travel, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, us road trip

The Road Trip

August 6, 2020

This summer, travel has looked a lot different for me than it has in other years. No flights, no long walks in Europe, no mountain village retreat at La Muse, no reuniting with friends, no picnics by the Seine.

I held onto my reservation at La Muse for as long as I could; even though I knew I probably shouldn’t hop on a flight and embark on an international trip, if France would only let me in, I wondered if I could find a way to do it as safely as possible. But by the first of July I knew I needed to give up- fully give up- and accept that I wouldn’t be traveling as I’d meant to this year.

I suppose I’ve known this for many months now but seeing the departure date for a long-planned trip come and go is another matter, and it stings (I would have just been wrapping up that trip now, with a couple of days in Paris. I know I shouldn’t let myself think of the things I would be doing if not for COVID, but alas…)

So, Europe was off the table. Could I do something else, instead? Something in my own country? Maybe, finally, my long-dreamed of cross-country trip?

Road through the Badlands, SD

I’m not going to go into this too much here, but I went back and forth- many times- on whether I should be traveling at all. The absolute safest and most cautious thing would have been to continue to hole up in my apartment, walk around my neighborhood, keep to myself, wait this thing out. But I live alone, I had nearly three months off from work, and there was no end in sight to this thing. I’m a generally still sort of person and I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t focus. I planned a 9-day walk on the C&O canal towpath that ended in flames; I returned home and immediately wanted to move again.

So I went west. I loaded up my car and drove to my hometown and my dad helped me take my car to a mechanic to have the AC fixed. I ate a slice of peach pie with my mom while I waited, and as soon as I got the call that the car was done, I hopped in and started driving.

Car on side of the road, somewhere in SD

I was gone for three weeks, though the last 5 days were spent with some family at a beach in North Carolina. That was certainly a vacation, but it felt very separate from the road trip. The road trip was the 17 days prior, driving 6,000 miles through 16 states, staying in cheap motels and quiet Airbnbs.

As ever, I imagined I might blog on my trip, writing a small, daily post every evening once I was settled at my destination. When will I ever learn? The days were long, the distances were far, I hiked and I walked and I explored and I was so tired at the end of every day that it was all I could do to figure out dinner and then grab the remote to the TV in whatever hotel I happened to be staying in, and flip through the channels to watch bad movies or home improvement shows.

I’d also imagined that I would do this trip solo, and most of it was, but my sister hitched a ride with me for the first 5 days. But that was fitting, and right, because part of this trip involved seeing Laura Ingalls Wilder/Little House on the Prairie sites, something we’ve talked about doing together since we were teenagers.

Line of laundry at Ingalls Homestead, De Set, SD

I centered the trip around Little House, in a way. I decided to go off into the prairies, to the Mid West: a place I pictured as open and empty and vast. Without people. I’d decided that if I was going to travel during a pandemic, I wanted to go somewhere quiet. I avoided cities, I turned down such generous offers from friends scattered across the country. There were so many more things I longed to do on this trip, but I pulled back, and narrowed my focus. “Open spaces,” I told myself. “Go to where it’s quiet.”

Two years ago I wrote this post about the Pennine Way, a stream of images and words that came to mind after I finished my hike, a way to attempt to sum it all up. I’m going to try to do the same thing here, to capture what this trip was for me.

(This might have more photos than it does words, but, here we go):

 

The Road Trip

It was the prairie. How the wind blew the tall grass and how it rippled in waves and how the land seemed to stretch forever.

Prairie, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND

Picking up my sister in Cleveland and strong cups of coffee and cinnamon raisin bagels and photos of state route signs. A crystal blue sky.

Cheering as we crossed state lines and rows and rows of corn and Sinclair the green dinosaur. Logging what I spent on gas into a little purple notebook, watching as prices fell as we moved west.

Crossing into South Dakota

Missouri welcomes you!

Sinclair the green dinosaur

Taking refuge at a truck stop as a wild storm blew in, finding the ice machine in every hotel. TV remotes and House Hunters International and take-out burgers and ice-cold bottles of beer, hotel beds with the covers pulled up and the AC on high.

Burgers and beer in the hotel room

Motel in Sheridan, WY

Playing Buddy Holly’s ‘Rave On’ and walking through the corn to the site of an airplane crash that happened long ago, on the day the music died. A field of dreams in the middle-of-nowhere, Iowa, an imagined baseball game, a crack of the bat heard somewhere far off in the long lines of corn.

Standing in the corn, Field of Dreams movie site, Dyersville, Iowa

A perfect summer lake. And another, and another.

Caribou coffee and hotel coffee and gas station coffee, a big bag of cherry Twizzlers and a box of salty popcorn.

Gas station coffee

Sod houses and dugouts and learning about the way people once lived, as they moved across the country in search of a better life, a place to homestead, to make and grow a home. An endless land that felt full of possibility. The glowing, golden light on the banks of Plum Creek, that same golden light in a cemetery high on a hill.

Sod house on the prairie, Minnesota

On the banks of Plum Creek, Walnut Grove, MN

Sunset in De Smet, SD

Old school houses and post offices and covered wagons, walking in the footsteps of a girl on the prairie, feeling the echo of her dreams.

Little House on the Prairie, Independence, KS

Covered wagon on the Ingalls Homestead, De Set, SD

And us, two girls, two women, walking into a dive bar in a small South Dakotan town, the place going silent, all heads swiveling towards us, the strangers in masks. “Howdy,” I wanted to say, but didn’t.

Homemade pulled pork sandwiches on red checkered cloth, and the proprietor of a motel talking about her daughter, their dog, the guinea pig, pulling out a cell phone to show us blurry photos. Our young tour guide in De Smet, dressed in pigtails and a dress- like Laura- telling us about her state and all the things we should see.

The Badlands. Custer State Park and Needles Highway and Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. And Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Little Bighorn National Monument and Devil’s Tower and free ice water at Wall Drug.

Badlands National Park, SD

Hike in Custer State Park, SD

Little Bighorn National Monument, MT

Self portrait at Devil's Tower, WY

Chirping prairie dogs and lumbering bison, and one charming baby bison who rested his chin on the hood of my car. A fox in a field and a bald eagle high in the sky, mule deer and burros.

Bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND

Baby bison in Wind Cave National Park

Horse at Little Bighorn National Monument, MT

A fried egg breakfast sandwich and takeout pizza from Casey’s. Soda in styrofoam cups and gallons of water and iced mint mochas from local coffeeshops. 

Rest stop in Nebraska

Hikes and walks and forging my own path through the prairie. Rough grass and white wildflowers and birds that startled and crickets and beetles. Sunrises from mountaintops.

Me in the prairie

Sunrise on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Lightening bugs against the cornfields in Kansas. Big skies, endless skies, stars that dipped all the way down to the horizon.

Sunset and cornfield, Kansas 

Kind park rangers and a sandy-haired boy in Nebraska with a dazzling smile. The man in Tennessee who told me about his hiking project, the couple on the porch of the vineyard in Asheville who told me about a great white shark.

Addison Farms vineyard, NC

Small towns and bridges and water towers and fading murals painted on brick walls, slanting light on long porches.

Main Street in Red Cloud, Nebraska

Bridge in Montana

Mural in a town in Nebraska

Old sign in Miles City, MT

Dirt roads and rock and roll, The Beatles and Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. 80mph speed limits. Crumbling buildings and shaded rest stops and a dusty white car.

Abandoned building at sunrise, Kansas

My car in the Badlands, SD

Miles and miles, thousands of miles, the windows rolled down, the sun on my arm, the corn and the fields and the prairies and all of it flying by, with me in the center. I could go anywhere, I could go everywhere.

Standing on rock in Custer State Park, SD

Road, sunset, Iowa

6 Comments / Filed In: solo-female travel, Travel, Writing
Tagged: adventure, American road trip, bison, cross-country road trip, Custer State Park, De Smet, Devil's Tower, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little Bighorn National Monument, Little House on the Prairie, North Dakota, on the banks of plum creek, pandemic travel, prairie, road trip, Sinclair gas station, South Dakota, summer, The Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, USA, Walnut Grove

Welcome! I’m Nadine: a traveler, a pilgrim, a walker, a writer, a coffee drinker. This is where I share my stories, my thoughts and my walks. I hope you enjoy the site!
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