04/27-05/09 Nearly two weeks off

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In the morning we take the hotel shuttle to Los Angeles International airport, AKA LAX. We are about 3 miles away, but from the time we get into the shuttle to the time we are at our gate, it’s 15 minutes!! There is no traffic on the road, no one else at the check in counter and no one but TSA workers at security. Once inside the terminal there are just a few people, but the cleaning crew outnumber the actual travelers. We take a look at the screens that show the flights for the day, less than one screen is needed because the flights are so few! Normally it would take at least 15 minutes just to drive the couple miles there with all the traffic. Wow! Crazy!


We were curious how hotel breakfast would work. The entrance to the breakfast room was blocked with a table and taped to the table was a menu. Inside the room a masked employee would fetch you what you asked for from the menu and put in on a tray.  You then take the tray to your room and eat it there. 

Empty corridor at LAX

Empty security at LAX 

View of Big Bear Lake, the San Bernardino mountains, San Jacinto, Santa Rosa peak and on into San Diego County from the air

I believe this is the view of the Laughlin/Bullhead City area, the Colorado River and Lake Mojave

Somewhere near the Grand Canyon 

One of the Dams on the Colorado River 

We have an overnight layover in Chicago because flights are so few. We take the hotel shuttle to our hotel and will continue on to Florida tomorrow. 

Scenic industrial zone view from our window near the Chicago airport.

The only nearby food was gas station Subway. I haven’t had Subway in a long time, but found it to be gross. I don’t get why it’s so popular. Subway is one of the most widely spread fast food chains in the world! 

We meet up with Ken and Helen in the Chicago airport in the morning and take the same flight to Ft Myers. They rented a car and we drive it to Naples where the coach is parked, in a RV community just for coaches! We get it road ready and drive to Marathon Coach in San Antonio, near Tampa. Jeff drives the coach and I follow in the car.

We stocked up on food from Publix in Naples and have a picnic in the grass while we wait for the coach to get worked on. I make a fine salad with mangos, tropical avocados and sugar bomb tomatoes. We also got lots of baby manzano bananas imported from Colombia, which are hard to find at home. This is an ideal meal for me! Publix is a great store!

One of the only food options nearby the coach service place is Burger King, located in a truck stop parking lot. I use my vegan xpress app to find out what’s vegan. What, French toast sticks are vegan!?? I want some! 

Under normal circumstances I would probably never eat Burger King, but it’s what’s available and I know I’ll burn it off soon on the trail. We take advantage of this rare opportunity and order just about everything that’s vegan. It is cheap, only $15 for all this food and it’s surprisingly good! My only regret is not ordering 2 fries and 2 pies!!

We take a few walks around the business park surrounding Marathon coach. These are needle pines that we see all over Florida. 

Many coaches parked at Marathon coach awaiting service. It’s fun to look at all of the coaches! The Mazda is our rental car, it is nice to drive. Once the service is complete, we continue on to Stuart, where the coach will be stored. Once it’s safely stowed in its climate controlled storage bay we all get in the car and drive to Orlando. We stay the night in a Hilton near the airport. We fly home in the morning. 

No trip to Florida is complete without a trip to the fast food chain Pollo Tropical! Black beans, brown rice, guava barbecue sauce, curry mustard and sweet plantains. 

Our layover on the way back is in Denver, but just for a few hours. The Orlando airport is just as empty as LA was and the numerous hotels and restaurants around the airport were mostly empty too. It was a sad sight. Denver airport was surprisingly busy and we even see people sitting in restaurants and eating, which hasn’t been allowed in California for awhile.

A view of the snowy peaks in Colorado. We could actually identify the highway leading to Aspen and some of the mountains and ski areas near where we lived last winter.

We were lucky to get a flight back into San Diego. The visibility is great and on the descent, we can see Mt Laguna, San Jacinto, the San Bernardino mountains and even all the way to Mt Baldy.

Florida almost felt like a “normal” place to be in terms of COVID, but back in California we must wear our masks. We ride the trolley from the airport to El Cajon and walk home.

We expect to do many day hikes while we are home packing resupply boxes and sending them off, but a heat wave comes through and lasts for days, so we only manage one hike to Lawson Peak. We spend the rest of the week at home hiding in the cool of the house. We might have gone to the beach, had they been open, but due to COVID we are not welcome there. 

A mess of resupply all over the table 

Me and my resupply mess. I end up packing about 3 weeks worth of food for the next 4 legs of our hike.

We end up being off the trail for 13 days. That’s longer than we planned, but it was nice not being out in the extreme heat.

Comments

  1. JGJune 29, 2020 at 12:57 PM

    This is fascinating. What an interesting opportunity. I'm glad you guys are doing this. Such an experience. You will benefit in unforeseen ways, looking down the road here, I think.
    Travel is just downright weird these days, though. Empty airports, empty hotels, closed restaurants.

    ReplyDelete

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