California and COVID

The COVID numbers in California are pretty out of control. There's a shelter in place order coming down tonight in several counties due to ICU capacity, and nearly statewide the counties are in "Purple" condition, which has led to the closure of several types of businesses and common areas.

Most of the precautions now required by this condition are ones we already take as a matter of course. We wear masks in all public spaces, we clean our hands coming in and out of stores and buildings, and take all our meals in our self-contained RV. Probably the riskiest thing we did in in Klamath was go to Trees of Mystery, but we were one of 3 families in the entire place, and they had their own distancing and sanitization precautions as well.

As a result of the Purple tier, many private parks and nearly all state park campgrounds are closed. There is a curfew from 10pm-5am, and nearly all nonessential business are closed. This has made travel through California very challenging, as they intend. Nobody should be coming here from out of state just for fun. Of course, we're from out of state, but we can't exactly go back home.

Therefore, we're going to get out of populated California and into the desert south as fast as is reasonable. We have another week here in the Redwoods region, as the miles down US-101 are a bit slower than an interstate, but before the end of the month we expect to be all the way down to the desert at the southern end of the state, far away from other people. There are some marathon (for us) travel days required to make this happen, but we believe it's the right thing to do.

It's hard to be speeding right past all the wonderful sights California has to offer. But with so many of them closed or inaccessible, it would be equally sad to see the state as a shadow of its true self. We want to do the responsible thing and keep everyone safe so we can return when this all blows over, and do California right.