Memorial Day Hiking

Memorial Day Monday, Day #72 Phase 2 of Reopening

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She is recovering, now in a long-term, acute care facility, from COVID-19 and hasn't been home in seven weeks. We value communicating with her via FaceTime as often as the facility will facilitate, which is almost every day.

[Please pray that we can find the transfer cord for John's new camera because he has all the best photos from this day, but we cannot access them!]

Every year on Memorial Day, our family has gone to the local cemetery to participate in the patriotic event put on for the day. We picnic there, listen to patriotic music, sometimes watch a presentation, and we pray for the deceased in the military section of the cemetery. This year, due to concerns about coronavirus, all Memorial Day events seem to be cancelled. (A note for posterity to my children: those dying from any cause during this lockdown often have not been permitted to have a public funeral at all. The most fortunate have had just their closest family present, fewer than ten, often just one or two family members.)

So, no cemetery for us this year.

Therefore, I thought, we have nothing to do and we might as well just do our summer school and music practice routine.

It was about 10:30 in the morning during our regular work when I walked through the kitchen and noticed Chris there . . . just not working. It hit me that today is a day off for him and he had nothing to do and nowhere to go. We could have used this for a family day out.

Having gone on only one family outing in two and a half months due to the lockdown, apparently I am totally out of the habit of thinking about going anywhere! I told Chris my regret and we quickly put together a plan to go to the local botanical gardens.

In what was nearly a miracle, I got all the kids ready, fed them lunch, and loaded them in the car within one hour. As I sat in the car, waiting for Chris to hop into the driver's sit, I went back and checked that email about the re-opening of the botanical gardens . . . it was NOT open today and would NOT be open for three more days!

Nothing was going to deter us at that point, so we drove down the driveway and decided on the way that we would try South Mountain State Park, an hour away.

So what if the sky was darkly overcast and it might rain at any point all afternoon? So what if it was Memorial Day weekend and we might show up to an overcrowded park or even be turned away because the park had reached its limit! We were going!

It turned out to be a wonderful day in a park that was not overcrowded. The temperature stayed at about 73 and the only wetness we experienced was from a certain daughter who walked into the river.

John brought this camera and took many photos.

The kids caught a big crayfish and then set him back in the river.

They also spotted a black rat snake, but not catch him!

Bonus Reading for Posterity:

• A Study on Infectivity of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Carriers
• It will be really interesting to see how this turns out. California Churches Prepared To Defy Governor, Resume In-Person Services, Says Attorney
• "The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago."  (Horowitz: The CDC confirms remarkably low coronavirus death rate. Where is the media?)