In limbo

As people who have spent most of our adult and professional lives planning and preparing for contingencies and who applied this process to our post-professional lives as travelers and bloggers, COVID in a word sucks. It sucks for a whole bunch of reasons: death and sickness, social isolation, the massive job loss and recession and the total unknown. Will there be a second, third and/or fourth wave? (The answer to the second does appear to be yes). Will and how soon will there be a vaccine, and an effective one at that? If we get it, will it be a mild case or the severe, hospitalized form?

Thus far, we are personally fortunate. If we did get it, which was possible since we were in the first hotspot in Colorado as it broke out here, it was mild. We don’t know anyone, personally, who has had a bad case of the disease.

The hardest part of this whole thing for us personally is the utter uncertainty. We feel in total limbo. Can we go back to Europe or not? Is it safe? Will we be able to do anything there (restaurants, sites and museums) if we go? Will we need to self quarantine for two weeks if we cross a European border? What if wave two or three happens while we are there? Would our Portuguese health insurance cover us? Could we get back to the US? Would we want to? There’s just too much to worry about (yes, we are worriers, which made us good at our jobs) so we don’t. We don’t think about any of it.

But now, as cases seem to rise in parts of the US we are contemplating options. Could we travel in less populated regions of America? Could we go to Portugal and return before flu season? Or do we just stay put? The travel bloggers we follow all seem to be opting for the last option, at least for now. Vamos ver.

In the meantime, since we can’t travel, we will just sit in the mountains and enjoy the hummingbirds.