Going South

A year or so ago, a friend pulled me aside and whispered urgently that everything was “going south.” She meant everything in her body, and I confessed that mine was doing the same. (Alas.) But I prefer to contemplate the prospect of literally going south, to Florida, Arizona, or Mexico. Or west, for some–to Hawaii. We who are retired, live in the frozen north-country, and have enough money to swing it do usually go south in the winter, even if it’s just for a week on a budget.

In recent years, my husband and I have usually gone to Key West for a few days. (When the kids were little, we went to Florida but to their grandparents’ house, close enough to Orlando to spend a day at a theme park.) I had only five days off between semesters then, so we didn’t want to spend too much time en route. And since my time off occurred in late January, Key West was one of the few spots that was reliably warm and only a quick flight away. Despite being tiny, Key West has a split personality: exuberant and raunchy around Mallory Square, quiet and elegant just a couple of blocks away. We rented apartments that were quiet and a little shabby, and we did almost nothing except sit in the shade (book in hand, nap on the horizon), take long walks, laze in the community pool or hot tub, and go out for delicious meals.  

It was heavenly. And restorative.  I am so ready to be there. But with Covid this year, how are we to manage it? Or should we forgo it altogether? These questions occupy my mind during many an idle hour.

Among my cohort of sensible friends, people are making different decisions.

Kathy, for example, decided to head (prudently, cautiously) to Florida. She and her husband drove down from New England and spent several nights on the road. One night they spent in New Jersey, with their son and his family (who also take precautions). As for the rest of the other nights, she wrote, “We decided to spend three nights traveling rather than two. We had heard that the Hilton and Marriott properties had good COVID practices, so we booked into them.  We called each hotel to check on their Covid practices.  There is nothing exciting about them, but so far we feel very safe.  All the bedding is cleaned between guests, there is lots of sanitizer, masks are worn by everyone, instructions on using elevators are posted, and people are staying 6 ft apart.  Occupancies are low, though we are surprised tonight about the number of people checking in.”  

In the planning of the trip, Kathy “worried a lot and obsessed about every detail.” She packed lunches, stopped only at state-run bathrooms (which were clean and had plenty of soap or sanitizer), and ordered take-out delivered to the hotel each evening. She and her husband broke up the drive by finding a park or wildlife refuge every afternoon for a lovely walk. And they managed to find, just south of Gainesville, “one of the cutest towns in America…. Listed on the National registry of historic places, Micanopy is the oldest town in central Florida, dating to the mid 1800’s.” (You can see one of Kathy’s pictures of Micanopy at the top of this piece.)

Even so, they found the long days of driving “extremely tedious.” “I have resigned myself,” Kathy wrote, “to the notion that this trip is not a post-retirement ramble through the South—no historic Civil War sites, no beautiful Southern cities or beaches.  In Naples we will not be attending concerts, visiting friends, or eating out.  However, we will be warm and get to sit and read on the beaches, walk every day, and bike ride.  I’ll also see my sister.  It will be fine, but my expectations aren’t high.”

Now that they’ve arrived, those lowered expectations turn out to have been a good idea. Despite astonishingly high Covid numbers, almost no one in Naples wears a mask except inside stores. (Really? With the hospitals nearly full? What is with those people?) To make things worse, Red Tide has infected some of the beaches and made them unpleasant places to walk, let alone swim. At first, Kathy thought about cutting the trip short. On the other hand, it is warm. She does have a private condo, plus family to hang out with. Now that a week’s gone by and she’s settled in, she thinks they may stay for a few weeks longer….

The other option to get somewhere warm is, of course, to fly. Some friends have bravely boarded airplanes (armored up in masks, goggles, and face shields), though they’ve been motivated by elderly mothers or new grandchildren rather than just yearning for warmth. No one has tested positive. “But,” a voice whispers in my head, “they traveled before the post-holiday spikes. Before the new and even-more-contagious strain of Covid arrived.”

One couple is flying all the way to Hawaii for their usual winter break. It’s a long, long plane-ride from the East Coast to Hawaii, especially wearing PPE. At least they can be less anxious about catching Covid:  since they’re doctors, they’ve already been vaccinated. By mandate of the state of Hawaii, they’ve also taken Covid tests and will present the results once they land. (Anyone who doesn’t have negative results has to quarantine. And it’s serious quarantine, too—the stay-in-one’s-hotel-room type, the wear-a-monitor-and-don’t-go-on-the-beach type. Obviously not what one goes to Hawaii to do.) Luckily, once they get there, they’ll be able to move around without too much worry: Hawaii has a very low number of cases. 

From most places in New England, one can get to Florida in a single flight–three hours, non-stop. It’s tempting, especially at moments when my skin is so dry that no amount of Eucerin can keep it from itching. Yet most people I know are staying home, waiting to travel until they’re fully vaccinated.

And, reluctantly, grumbling all the way, so am I. Two trips to Florida have already been flushed, one planned for the next two weeks and another that was a backup possibility in March. (Thank you, VRBO, for a reasonable cancellation policy.) 

The choice to stay home makes me think of a great scene in a Patrick O’Brien novel about Jack Aubrey, a British sea-captain during the Napoleonic Wars. (Many of the guys I know adore the series.) At table on board the ship, Jack sees two weevils crawl out of some crumbs of ships biscuit and asks his friend Stephen Maturin to choose between them. Although Stephen first protests there is “not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo . . . the same species of curculio,” Jack presses him for an answer. Finally he points to the weevil on the right as having “a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.” “There I have you,” cries Jack. “Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils?” 

Whatever we choose this winter, we also be choosing the lesser of two weevils.