So Marc and I thought we could (with a little luck, a supply of masks and a lot of disinfectant wipes) pull off a trip out to see him, maybe give him a last in-person goodbye.
It's so hard to sit here thousands of miles away and try to love and help by remote control.
We found an affordable air flight out to Des Moines and started plotting out a road trip back to Utah that would include seeing Marc's son and his wife in Nebraska and checking out Mt. Rushmore and maybe Yellowstone.
We knew it might be risky to travel through several states and mingle with populations that might have Corona Virus. We also knew they might not welcome out-of-state visitors.
But, anxious to break out of our self-imposed isolation, and thinking we could be careful enough, we booked a flight and a car and called my sister-in-law to let her know we were coming.
"Oh! Absolutely not!" she said in alarm. "The Home Health people here forbid it! It's too much risk!"
Ok. I understand. We got kind of carried away with the vision of the freedom of the open road. I totally see the wisdom in protecting my brother and his precarious state.
So, we reined it in and redrew our plans.
We dropped the visit to Iowa. We cancelled the plane ride. We decided NOT to stop in Omaha because now it was pretty much out of the way.
We decided on a four-day run that would include some Mormon Trail history sites, a hike around the base of Devil's Tower, a trip over to see Mt. Rushmore and visits to Yellowstone, the bears and the geysers.
Marc had his GPS all programmed. I had a cooler stocked with snacks and provisions for roadside picnics.
It looked like fun compared to staying within our four walls and Utah's restrictions. (This way we were dealing with Wyoming's, South Dakota's, and Idaho's as well.)
It turned out to be low level fun and a LOT of driving, over 1,700 miles on our rental Outlander.
Marc had never been to Wyoming so a half-inch on the map didn't look like the endless road it was. The GPS counted a gravel and dirt road as a real road.
The travel time we calculated didn't factor in the construction areas where we waited and waited for the pilot cars to come free us.
We didn't expect the hotel in Cody to NOT have an elevator or to supply soap as a given.
We only missed Old Faithful's eruption by 10 minutes.
On the plus side, the little ELKS movie house across from our hotel in Rapid City showed us a zombie movie about a pandemic with Brad Pitt playing the lead. That took our minds off our troubles.
We fit through the 8-foot, 0-inch Needles Eye tunnel in Custer State Park. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-QbHhYSSdk)
We had some unique picnic lunches, sitting on the side of the road in the sun.
We saw the Crazy Horse Monument.
We didn't get eaten by a bear.
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