Safe travels

COVID may not be done with us but, over the last couple of years, people have developed effective tips that enable us to travel in relative safety. Vaccination (and boosting) is one key to safe travel, of course, but that isn’t enough on its own. Especially in crowded spaces, such as airports, planes, hotel lobbies and museums, masking still makes enough of a difference so as to be worth the inconvenience. And when at all possible, it’s worth the effort to avoid crowds altogether. For us, that meant dining outdoors, something we did almost exclusively on this trip. Finally, we brought a handful of COVID tests from the stack we’ve accumulated over the past two years, and used a few, either to confirm that the sniffles and sneezes we experienced were due to a mild allergy to the local flora (they were), or because we were seeing someone special who we most certainly didn’t want to infect.

Travel, though, is about far more than just avoiding COVID. Our trip served as a reminder of just how big the United States is, and how different the various parts of the country are. For instance, upon arriving in Pennsylvania we were almost immediately struck by the relative abundance of water. I, for one, had almost forgotten that our water-saving way of life in the West is not normal, or necessary, in large parts of the country. Although the Pennsylvania countryside is incredibly green, sprinklers are a rare sight out there. It eventually sunk in that we could take long, hot showers if we so chose, but the force of habit proved too strong, and we ended up keeping our showers short. I will admit, though, that the hot, humid weather we experienced during much of our trip spurred us on more than one occasion to take an additional shower later in the day, something we did with little guilt.

Although I’ve been to Washington, D.C., on multiple occasions, this trip proved interesting in a number of ways. For one thing, we arrived in D.C. not long after the Supreme Court issued its ruling on the carrying of concealed firearms, and on the very day that the court overturned Roe v. Wade. Thus, although our train pulled into Union Station just after the biggest of the protests, throughout our stay we saw plenty of people expressing their opinions about the various issues, on both sides.

We also walked a lot. While our hotel was well situated to many of the more popular sights in D.C., getting to them still involved a great deal of walking. And although we did walk by the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court building, and the Washington and Lincoln monuments, we spent little time there, having seen them on past trips. Instead, we focused on lesser-known attractions, such as the U.S. Botanic Garden, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and the memorial to John Ericsson: a Swedish-American inventor who, among other things, built the USS Monitor, the armored ship that did battle with the Confederacy’s USS Merrimack. We also spent a delightful afternoon exploring the house and grounds at Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens, which was the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post. Post was a truly fascinating woman — at one time the richest woman in the United States — who amassed an extensive art collection featuring a great deal of Imperial-era Russian art (including two Fabergé eggs).

Our trip was delightful, but I’m even more delighted just to be traveling once again. For our part, the accommodations we made to feel safe were fairly minor, and well worth the effort. While we’ll continue to give serious thought to the best, and safest, way to make any given trip, no longer do we feel chained to our home town, or even to places we can reach by driving. Once again, as Southwest Airlines used to say, we are now free to move about the country.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.