Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Saturday, June 13th, 2020

Happy

What a glorious day to wake up too. The sun is shining like there is no tomorrow and the temperature is just right, not to hot, not cold, no humidity. A perfect day for a day trip. As has been the plan for last weekend, we are on a mission to find a swimmable body of water.

Now that school is done and all essays have been handed in (the last one last night just before midnight, never thought I would have to deal with George Orwell’s 1984 ever again) EM is enthusiastic about the adventure. She cut watermelon, strawberries and cucumbers for us to snack on and researched the different natural parks and swimming opportunities based on what I had so far unearthed.

Her suggestion is a trip to Lake Arrow Head in the Shenandoa National Park. Only downside: it is a two-hour drive, but what the heck, it is not like we have any other plans these days.

Before we can head out, we need to deal with the distribution of the yard signs. A number of people came by in the morning to pick theirs up. Some of the Venmo payments are in different names to the ones who placed the order, which makes tracking and delivery of payment a real nuisance. Based on my excel sheet I had 65 orders and received 65 signs including stakes. I have 18 left. Nine to be delivered to Danielle, so that leaves nine. Based on my list thought 12 have yet to be picked up and two have not yet been paid for to technically the total is 14, so it seems I am five short. How did that happen I wonder? Some who had paid already were going to just pick up the sign while we were out; maybe I had left more out than I thought and all six have been picked up? It is puzzling.

Lake Arrow Head on the other hand was a revelation. There are no lifeguards on duty and swimming is entirely at ones’ own risk. This means one can swim anywhere in the lake and as far as one likes to. Across, around, anywhere one wants, for as long as one wants. It was amazing.

A few people were out on Kayaks, some fishermen at the shores, with most people crowding the artificial beach area, which caused us to make bee line around the lake to the other side. Here we found a rocky patch to spread our towels and launch into the lake from. The water is clean and clear and warm.

I was very glad to find I was still able to swim. We spend about and hour wearing to one side then crossing the lake just to turn around and head back to our spot. On the way back we had intended to stop at some of the farm stalls and a winery, however, by 17:00 they all were closed. So, we drove straight home, almost wrecking the car in the process. I was going quite fast and changed lanes for my exit, just to find that the lane I had switched into ceased to exist and cars in front of me were merging. I slammed the breaks and as if by miracle avoided hitting any other car or the wall, though the little Fiat skidded to the left and the right a bit. Admittedly, my knees were weak after the incident.

To round of a perfect day, we picked up some Chinese. Inevitable, as one does when hungry, we ended up with food for five instead of 2 people, so EM is planning to have friends over on Monday for a Chinese picnic. Tomorrow we shall explore Patasco National Park!

Today 7.75 million cases are reported worldwide, with the USA seeing a 24k increase to reach 2.11 million reported cases.