tripped out

Jan. 1st, 2022 03:08 pm
davemerrill: (Default)
[personal profile] davemerrill
So yeah, we went to Atlanta for Christmas. We'd planned the trip a few months out, figuring COVID would be a dull roar in the background, instead of the cranked up to 11 scream it's been for about a month now. A week before the trip Canada's health minister pretty much begged everybody to cancel their non-essential travel, and I waited for some sort of official border closure. That never came, so we went.

We left here Wednesday the 22nd and drove to Cincinnati. The border crossing was uneventful - the officer asked if we were vaxed, but didn't check the documents. We stayed with Greg and Melissa that night and the next day drove down I-75 Atlanta way, stopping off in Chattanooga to see Grant and Marie and Daniel.

In Atlanta we didn't do a whole lot other than seeing family, wrapping presents, having Xmas at Dad's with everybody over a brunch/lunch meal. Boxing Day Sunday we saw a bunch of friends at Matt Buffington's house with his family (two kids now!) - CB, Elizabeth, Parker, Matt, Melanie, Jessica, Mike and their two daughters.

Monday we went out to Athens to see Devlin T. at Bizarro Wuxtry and trade in a bunch of comics for store credit, and catch up on what's been going on in the Classic City. Also on Monday we got our pre-arrival PCR tests at Walgreens'. They'd been good at getting my results back during AWA so I figured a Monday noon test would be fine for a Wednesday border crossing.

Tuesday we got back on the road. We detoured to Dirty Jane's Antiques in Red Bank TN, where we saw a repurposed school bus that housed One Piece fans (what's the story with that?) and then we took 27 north to I-40, I-40 east to 75, and 75 north back to Cincinnati. Wednesday we got up and still no test results. We got lunch and still no test results. Andy knew of a lab near his job that guaranteed same-day PCR test results for $100 - but they closed at 3pm. At 2 we decided to bite the bullet and get those tests.

A couple of C-notes later we were swabbed. Rather than sit around Cincy waiting for emails we figured we could make some time on the road, so back north we went.

Shain's negative results from the second lab arrived at 7pm. We stopped at a Starbucks in Lincoln Park and I checked my email - I had both sets of (negative) test results waiting for me. With those in hand we crossed back into Canada about 9:30. This border crossing was much less trouble than the search we got back in August. We got home about 1:30am.

All in all a fine trip - we got to see a lot of people, exchange presents, and not get sick. We didn't get to do the kind of deep-dive antique mall digging that we enjoy, however. The sheer stress of worrying about getting those return PCR test results back in time, combined with the stress of worrying about getting COVID in the first place, well, that made this trip more anxious than usual - and I'm always anxious about long cross-border car trips anyway. So yeah, some stress.

Glad we saw family and friends, glad we stayed well, glad to be home. Here's to a better 2022!

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
89 1011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 12th, 2025 02:03 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios