First Leg

January 3rd, 2020

There is something enormously freeing about waking up one morning and saying okay let’s hit the road - California here we come!

Harry and I did a good job of getting ready for this trip starting way back with organizing our barn in the unexpected warmer weather in November. Uh huh, that far back and yes it started with the barn. By the time we got up this morning at 7:00 we just needed to pack up our necessities and pile into the car by 9:30. Our first stop was Somerset, Pennsylvania which would bring us to the beginning of Route 70, which should take us directly west across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinoise and all those “other states” until we hit Nevada Interstate 15 and head south on 15.

Alas, between us and Somerset was a snowstorm that started about 3 1/2 hours into our trip. Lucky for me, that was the end of my driving stint and the beginning of Harry’s. He’s much better in snow. Three and a half hours of pretty intense snow. Poor Sammie has intestinal distress so we had to stop more times than we planned. In one of the stops we recognized that a half foot of snow had fallen. Also, at a Valero gas station in Pennsylvania two Amish horse drawn buggies went by in this very heavy snow fall at a very good clip. It was pretty dramatic to be at a regular old gas station and see these two buggies go by - beautiful horses, a fast clip.

Well, we got to Somerset 10 hours after setting out and checked into a Days Inn Motel. Days Inn is our lot in life when travellng with two large dogs and wanting to be near the Interstate with access to our room through the parking lot. A lot of our friends are alarmed by the idea of us venturing across the country at the height of the pandemic and I totally agree but we weighed the risks and we told each other that we were making an informed decision The “informed” part of that sentence means that if something happens to us on this journey there can be no recriminations, second guessing, etc. And you have our permission to remind us of that.

Back to The Days Inn - We are supposed to register from our car to minimize the only human contact we plan on having on this trip, and then just go inside to get the key. That didn’t happen exactly as planned at this first stop. I went into the office to show the clerk my driver’s license and to pick up our key. Both people working at the motel were behind a plexiglass petition but without masks. So far so good. I was in there for about 2 minutes when I realized I was hearing people talking nearer to me than they should be and looking up, I see a women (more than 10 feet away from me) talking to someone from behind the desk - WITHOUT A MASK ON. Major freak out. I told the clerk behind the plexiglass that I was leaving because I was super uncomfortable with someone not wearing a mask and rushed out to the car. Did I get COVID????

Harry tended to the dogs while I tended to getting us ensconced in our room - we brought all of our linen, bed covers, food, a new hand propelled coffee maker, etc, and importantly wine for the evening. Getting us set up is a military field operation. All the while I am going back and forth into our room a guest from two doors down is outside her room smoking and trying to talk to me - which I am strongly discouraging since SHE IS NOT WEARING A MASK! Are these people crazy????

And just to finish with a flourish - our room had an unidentifiable bug on the wall that Harry had to remove to the outside. Days Inn sucks. Two more things about Somerset - this is a town you might stay at if you wanted to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial - this is the area where the plane commandeered by the passengers and crew of Flight 93 on 9/11 went down. It is thought that the United States Capital was the terrorists’ destination thwarted by those brave folks. Also, Somerset abuts Johnstown, Pennsylvania which was the site of the largest flooding disaster in the 19th Century killing 2,209 people, and also the site of Clara Barton’s (founder of the Red Cross) first major disaster relief effort - the Johnstown Flood.

Leg 1 completed - 482 miles. Tommorrow we set out for Leg 2 of the Great American Pandemic Get Away which starts us on Interstate 70 and ends at Effingham, Illinois.Read more