Death Of A Dream

Chapter Seven

We thought we were pretty well adapted to our life of chaos but this new world unfolding before us was a whole new level of chaos that we had no idea how to navigate.

It was something we could have never planned for and we had no idea what lay in wait for us down the road as the world carried on with its descent into madness, completely indifferent to our situation, determined to bring us down with it.

Resistance is futile.

But we weren’t going down without a fight!

The Oasis Palms RV Resort in Thermal California was our current base of operations and our reservation extended until early the next week so we had a little time to kill as we tried to plan out the next section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

We had so many questions and no idea how to decide the future of our Grand Adventure.

Was it safe to continue?

Was it irresponsible?

Was it smart?

And more importantly, was it even possible?

It was impossible to know.

Though not as quiet or secluded as Stagecoach Trails had been, Oasis Palms did offer reliable cell phone coverage which was both a blessing and a curse as we found ourselves frequently checking our phones for updates on the Covid-19 virus.

It was a like witnessing a tragedy first hand, in slow motion. You don’t want to watch but at the same time you can’t look away and like a force of nature, it was happening regardless of your feelings on the matter.

Despite all our concerns we tried to make the best of our situation and be present in the moment as we explored our new temporary home base.

There was a fenced in tennis court just a few spaces over from where Little Geo was parked and it instantly became our hang out spot because we could close the gate and let the boys play without having to chase them all over (I’m looking at you Fenix) and they loved the freedom of running around without us hovering over them.

It was comforting watching Atlas and Fenix play like nothing had changed for them because it meant we were doing our job correctly.

It was proof that we were successfully keeping them safe and shielded from the worries that plagued (pun intended) our minds and the world around us.

Atlas had his very own orange tree, a wonder that never ceased to amaze him, and we were surrounded by palm trees and an endless blue sky in a little oasis of our very own.

Sometimes, if only for a few minutes, we would get lost in our surroundings and we’d forget about the state of the world and the edge that our Grand Adventure was precariously perched on.

There was a leash free dog run on the property as well, something Crixus was thrilled to discover. He ran around with his nose glued to the ground trying to absorb each and every smell that had been left behind by the previous doggy guests.

The RV park also had a laundry room on site that seemed to be a highly coveted commodity and whenever we saw any of the machines available, which was very infrequent, we would pounce and attempt to get caught up on the constant kid laundry.

The boys went through clothes like they were going out of style, Fenix especially. That kid was the master of blowouts and we were hard pressed to keep him stocked on clean clothes.

When he wasn’t blowing out of his diapers, he was crawling around in the dirt, flinging it into the air and pouring it down his shirt and pants. You know, as one does.

Atlas was more careful and didn’t go through as many clothes as Fenix did. He preferred to keep himself separated from the desert dirt and used objects like toys, sticks and rocks to play in it instead.

Did I mention there was also a heated outdoor swimming pool?

Atlas and Fenix were through the roof excited when we told them about it and they could not wait to get in.

It took an age, but when we finally had everyone changed and pool ready, we left Crixus in Little Geo with the overhead Maxxair fan running before we set off for some fun in the sun.

We had the entire pool to ourselves and spent most of the day swimming in the warm water, splashing around as the hot sun rose higher in the sky.

It was a blissful way to spend the day and with our phones so far away, we were finally able to take our minds completely off the the virus and fully embrace the joy of the moment with our beautiful and very happy boys.

Still, reality always has a way of yanking you out of your happy little day dreams and right back to reality.

Sometimes adulting really sucked.

Even in the best of times there’s so much uncertainly about an undertaking like our Grand Adventure and here we were, trying to navigate through our normal every day chaos in perhaps the most uncertain time in our history, smack dab in the middle of a growing pandemic.

Go figure.

The news reports didn’t look good and every update we got made the future of our Grand Adventure look very bleak.

Despite all the constant bad news we were still determined to continue on. To us, it felt like we were far safer on the road and each news report seemed to confirm that feeling.

Humans can be dangerous when they’re scared and right now the whole world was in a mad panic, making civilization a much more hostile place and every one of our instincts said run away!

Or walk away, in Nick’s case anyway.

The plan was for me to drive Nick an hour to the east, back towards Julian, to Scissors Crossing which was where we had finished the last section of the PCT together.

After dropping Nick off in the middle of the desert once again I’d make the return trip back to Little Geo with Atlas, Fenix and Crixus and wait at Oasis Palms until Nick reached Paradise Valley Café in Mountain Center which was about 74 miles from Scissors Crossing.

If everything went according to plan, I’d be meeting him there in four days.

In some ways, we were in a better situation with me waiting out the next few days in Thermal California because I actually had cell signal, so we’d be able to communicate for this next stretch of trail. A new requirement for all future base camps for me and the boys, especially now.

In other ways, not so much.

But truthfully, I was a wreck as the drop off day approached. I had thought the flash flood was a lot to handle by myself with two kids but it had nothing on this raging pandemic mid-apocalyptic world I suddenly found myself in.

The prospect of being woman alone with two small kids as the Covid-19 virus continued to rage out of control was overwhelming and my once brave intentions flew the coop leaving me a freaked out mess.

I worried about my safety in such times, essentially towing a giant resupply box on wheels, filled with all the things people were fighting over in stores.

There were so many stories on the news about people breaking into cars to steal groceries and especially toilet paper that was sold out everywhere.

Desperate people do desperate things and my home on wheels suddenly felt less safe and more like a giant target for the brave, stupid or scared one stop shoppers, or in this case, looters.

I couldn’t seem to stop myself from imagining various horrifying scenarios playing out once I was alone.

What if it got worse? And if so, how much worse could it really get?

I was scared. No, I was terrified.

I didn’t want to be left alone anymore, not with the way things were going in the world.

I didn’t feel safe at all and my confidence shattered.

This was a lot to handle and it certainly wasn’t what I had signed up for!

Not even close.

I could see Nick struggling with his desire to continue on the trail while trying to balance my very justified fears plus his own.

I wasn’t ready to cancel our plans, not by a long shot, so I did everything in my power to try and calm my overwhelming anxiety in support of our Grand Adventure.

It was not easy, but ultimately, despite our fears, we both felt like we were safer on the road and trail than we were trying to meld back into current society if we decided to call it quits.

So the plan was planned and once morning rolled around, we would set out and make it so.

But once again, 2020 had other plans.

The first blow came when the state of California issued a mandatory statewide shelter in place order.

Shelter in place?

What did that even mean?

And how, let alone WHERE, do you shelter in place when your home has wheels and your plan requires constant re-adjustment and movement?

Shelter in place at an RV park that charges by the night? Ok, sure, but for how long? Who’s going to pay that bill when our money runs out? We had saved enough money to fund this trip for six months, not indefinitely!

Shelter in place while dry camping? That sounds more reasonable but wait, what happens when our batteries die, our water runs out and our black tanks threaten to overflow?

And tell me, how does a thru-hiker shelter in place? Just how long are they supposed to live in their tent, stationary, out in the middle of nowhere? What happens when they run out of food and water?

At this point were we even ALLOWED to carry on with our Grand Adventure?

Shelter in place. It didn’t make any sense.

It was all too new, nothing like that had ever happened before and it was impossible to know what was right, what was best and more importantly, what was true.

Nobody knew what was going on, how serious the risk was or how it was being spread, let alone how to stop it.

I was really freaking out now.

Nick could probably get away with hiking, who’s going to see him way out in the middle of nowhere anyway? But me, with my twenty foot travel trailer would most certainly not go un-noticed.

How serious was the Shelter in place order?

Could they enforce it? More importantly, WOULD they enforce it?

It was only four more days so we decided to carry on with our plan and re-evaluate when Nick finished the next section of the trail.

The second blow came when Appalachian Trail Association made the first bold move and sent out a mass email to all current and future thru-hikers for the 2020 season, asking them to cancel their hike and get off trail until further notice.

That got our attention.

Would the Pacific Crest Trail Association make the same request?

In response to that request, some pretty well known YouTube thru-hikers that Nick had closely followed for years announced they were getting off the AT to protect the small trail town communities as requested.

Now it seemed more like a question of WHEN, not IF.

WHEN The Pacific Crest Trail Association made the same request, to get off trail, would we cancel our Grand Adventure?

Honestly, it didn’t even seem like a real option to us because we had literally sold our entire life to come out and live this dream, this Adventure of a lifetime.

If we quit, where would we go? What would we do?

We had no home to go back to, we sold it. Almost everything we owned in the world was with us in the Pilot and Little Geo.

We had no jobs, no prospects, and no real plan outside this Grand Adventure.

This was it. This was our plan.

Quitting now would destroy us and everything we had worked so hard to accomplish.

In any case, no such email had been sent, no request to get off trail had been spoken and so we would to head back to Scissors Crossing in the morning like we planned and cross that bridge later.

But then it happened.

It wasn’t even hours later when the Pacific Crest Trail Association followed up with the state of California’s mandatory shelter in place order and dealt the death blow, asking all thru-hikers, future and present, to cancel their hikes until further notice.

They said it was to protect the small trail towns and to limit the further spread of this fast growing plague.

It wasn’t mandatory, it was a strongly worded request. Be responsible. Do the right thing. Our sacrifice wasn’t worth the risk to so many other lives.

After seeing other big name YouTube thru hikers “doing the right thing” and with the mandatory shelter in place order in effect it felt like our choice had already been taken from us.

What else could we do?

And just like that, it was over.

I remember us just sitting there inside Little Geo with tears sliding down our faces, frozen in place, momentarily devoid of all emotion, completely numb, as we realized we had finally reached the end of the road.

How had it come to this?

We were homeless, jobless and suddenly dreamless, living in a world we no longer recognized, unmoored, adrift in a sea of despair.

Shortly after the big PCTA announcement, the small trail towns which are crucial to a thru-hikers success were rumored to begin turning away outsiders to do their part to not encourage anyone to continue on with their thru hike.

The rumors continued unchecked, spreading chaos and fear.

It was a relentless avalanche of bad news and the blows just kept on coming.

There were threats of police crack downs and misdemeanor citations being issued to anyone breaking the shelter in place order flying around.

As if that wasn’t threat enough, California was also strongly considering implementing Marshall Law if people didn’t abide by the mandatory shelter in place order.

As a result of the mandatory shelter in place order, State parks closed their gates and rumor had it National Parks, BLM Land and National Forests would soon follow suit.

There were whispers that all other public land access would be restricted and that State borders would begin closing down, stopping anyone from crossing State Lines.

And the cherry on top?

They were saying that some RV parks were refusing new reservations and turning away anyone without a reservation in a ridiculous catch 22 situation.

I mean, does it get any worse than that?

We couldn’t make heads or tails about what was rumor and what was truth and we didn’t know what to believe.

It was absolute chaos and our precarious grip on reality finally slipped and we were swept up in the tornado of madness not knowing if we’d ever come back down.

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

In the wake of so many devastating blows, we were in full on damage control mode. We were asking questions that had no answers and feeling every emotion imaginable, times a thousand.

What do we do now? What CAN we do?

Where do we go? Where CAN we go?

It was too much!

We felt so betrayed.

This was not part of the plan!

The death of a dream. The death of normal.

What comes next?

We aren’t adult enough for this!

It was heartbreaking on so many levels and we struggled to find even a shred of hope in within our bubble of devastation.

I felt claustrophobic, like I was being squeezed on all sides and I couldn’t catch my breath.

Our hearts were officially broken and our grand adventure was officially canceled and we wanted something, anything, to show for our extreme leap of faith in selling our entire life to make this dream a reality.

We needed a plan, something to hold onto, something to focus on.

Trying desperately to maintain some level of sanity we realized that despite all the bad news swirling around and the dream crushing news, it was not the time to wallow in our misfortune.

It was time to be thankful we were healthy and safe, and most importantly, together.

We had enough food and supplies to get us through the coming weeks, we had each other and we had Little Geo.

Home is where you park it and we could park it anywhere.

Deciding to make the most of our circumstances, we would take advantage of our ability to go wherever the wind blew us and live life in the moment, one day at a time.

That was what we wanted all along, wasn’t it? Freedom from the shackles of society and the pressure of upholding the American Dream?

But when the dust settled, would there still be an American Dream?

What would this new world bring us?

What did our future hold?

The virus was unprecedented, the world had never seen anything like this. No one knew what it meant or how it would effect the world.

No one knew how Covid-19 transmitted or just how deadly it would become. All we knew was that the numbers were climbing by the minute and the panic surrounding it continued to spike.

Instead of heading back out on trail like we had been hoping for, we would instead take the day to plan and get everything ready for a new kind of adventure, one we never saw coming.

With the statewide mandate pressing down on us and the borders closing in around us, we decided that we would hitch up Little Geo first thing in the morning and head for the quickest route out of California.

This state had nothing left for us now.

But where would we go?

We had beautiful, wonderful, supportive family waiting for us in both Oregon and Washington, arms open wide, offering us a place to stay to regroup and figure out what comes next.

Life is a highway, right?

So, we put the Pilot into drive and embraced the chaos as it swirled around us.