Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:26:20 -0700
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From: Stuart MacMillan <stuartmacm@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Vanlife in a pandemic--text version
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Paywall and link issues have made this impossible to read on-line so here is
the text (no photos). The Times should give you three free articles so try
going to their website: www.seattletimes.com <http://www.seattletimes.com>
for the full version.
When the coronavirus pandemic got serious, I was with my brother in his van
in Death Valley. Here's what I learned.
April 17, 2020 at 6:00 am
The author was living out of a van in Death Valley National Park with his
brother Ethan (pictured) as the novel coronavirus spread in the United
States.
By Connor Goodwin
Special to The Seattle Times
On Friday the 13th of March, it rained in Death Valley, California, one of
the driest places on Earth.
"If this isn't an omen, I don't know what is," I said to my brother, quickly
hammering out a tweet only to realize we had no cell service. After thumbing
through news updates on COVID-19 - then a new, nervous twitch - I was
relieved to be siloed from the sickening world, if only for a day or two,
unaware of what was to come.
Located east of the Sierra Nevada, Death Valley is a vast wasteland of
mottled rubble surrounded by modest mountains patterned like seabeds. Once a
site for mining borax, a material used in taxidermy and household cleaners,
Death Valley was repurposed for tourism in the 1930s.
Despite its macabre name, Death Valley felt like one of the safest places to
be at the moment, what feels like forever ago. Judging by the full parking
lots and lines at the visitor center, others thought so as well. Around the
nation, Americans were just beginning to feel the social, economic and
psychological toll of COVID-19 and, in response, many sought refuge in
nature while they could.
For much of the winter, my brother had been roaming the Southwest and living
out of his van before starting a new job as a wildland firefighter in Estes
Park, Colorado. When he suggested I fly to Las Vegas for a week of climbing
and biking in surrounding areas like Red Rock Canyon, Zion National Park and
Death Valley National Park, my only hesitation at the time was cost.
"Flights are cheap and we'd camp and cook," he assured me.
Without knowing it, I volunteered for self-lockdown with my brother in his
van for a week.
But reader, let me tell you, in that seemingly distant past,
self-quarantining in a van was luxurious. We had freedom of movement,
freedom from crowds and, for a while, freedom from fear. Fear of the
invisible enemy.
When I arrived in Las Vegas, coronavirus was all I could talk about. After
swimming through a swamp of contagion - the subway, Newark Airport and Las
Vegas, that Carnival cruise ship of a city - I was decidedly on edge. My
brother listened patiently. "I almost didn't come," I said, breathing a
little easier on our way out of the city, away from people. "Honestly," he
said, "I haven't thought about COVID-19 all that much."
I came to understand why. Far from crowds and news updates, we bouldered in
Red Rocks Canyon, biked through Echo Canyon in Death Valley, hiked outside
of St. George, Utah, and rewarded ourselves at exquisite bakeries, then, of
course, still operational. In the evenings, my brother cooked: lemon
risotto, cauliflower and chickpea curry, root vegetable medleys. We rose at
first light, assessed the weather and decided what to do and where to go
over coffee. The pleasure of it all was compounded by the thought of being
cooped up in my New York apartment with a singular view.
The view from my passenger-seat window was ever changing. Layers of vibrant
red rock pancaked in Utah. Goofy Joshua trees, as if drawn by Dr. Seuss, in
the low deserts of California. Canyons everywhere polished by wind and bent
by water.
The author and his brother were ahead of the curve on social distancing - as
the coronavirus pandemic spread to the U.S., the siblings were unwittingly
in the perfect place for escaping people: a van in the middle of Death
Valley. (Ethan Goodwin / Special to The Seattle Times)
The author and his brother were ahead of the curve on social distancing - as
the coronavirus pandemic spread to the U.S., the siblings were unwittingly
in the perfect place for escaping people:... (Ethan Goodwin / Special to The
Seattle Times) More
I took note of other vehicles built for a nomadic lifestyle, a habit among
vandwellers. Death Valley, in particular, had some war-ready rigs: mammoth
tires with aggressive tread, jerrycans with extra fuel fastened to the side,
a strip of floodlights and, the granddaddy of them all: the EarthRoamer
expedition vehicle.
Between these rigs outfitted for societal collapse, the indifferent
stonescape of Death Valley, and the exponentially escalating global
pandemic, it was easy to imagine we were living a "Mad Max" prequel. Back in
New York, I wondered how many writers were working on a script starring a
Seamless bike delivery guy - like HBO's "High Maintenance," but with
mozzarella sticks.
Cut off from the news, Hollywood hijacked my imagination. An abundance of
scripted doomsday scenarios colored in sketches of an uncertain future. At
once impersonal and familiar, they provided some framework to intuit the
real-life consequences of an ever-escalating global pandemic. For me, and I
suspect many others, movies are the most accessible reference point for the
current global pandemic. Perhaps this outlook indulged in fantastical
thinking too much, but in an age of spectacle, it felt natural.
Reality, however, does not kneel to apocalyptic fantasy. Life on the road
had its own perils and presented a different hierarchy of concerns than the
city. Here, social distancing was not an issue. But access to certain
amenities (showers, Wi-Fi) and resources (fuel, food, water) demanded we
venture into town.
Expeditions into the grocery store under the new normal required a safety
check, just like climbing. Gloves? Check. Hand sanitizer? Check.
Disinfectant wipes? Check. We stocked up as many provisions as we could - a
week at most.
A series of rainy days drove us to stay in a St. George hotel on March 17. I
was uneasy sleeping in a shared, transient space, but the immediate comforts
of a spacious bed, hot shower and mindless TV beckoned sweet as any Siren.
We watched CNN and I kept checking updates on the outbreak in New York. The
day I left, March 11, there were 212 confirmed cases in New York state, and
only 52 in New York City. A week later, there were 814 confirmed cases in
the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio was weighing a "shelter in place" order and
Gov. Andrew Cuomo had announced a hospital ship was en route to relieve New
York's overburdened health care system. I wasn't the only one taken by
surprise. Since then, New York City has become the American epicenter for
the pandemic and New York has more than 210,000 cases statewide (and
counting).
Then, it was so early in the health crisis that the greatest dangers were
"unknown unknowns," to borrow Donald Rumsfeld's phrase. Health officials
gently prodded an unwilling public (admittedly, myself included) toward
containment measures while news reports described impending shortages of
medical supplies and inadequate testing.
It was safe to assume the number of confirmed cases and deaths were
low-balled. Researchers at Columbia University corroborated this suspicion
when they estimated that at the time, there were 11 undetected cases of
COVID-19 for every confirmed case.
A week removed from the problem seeming invisible, distant, it became clear
the U.S. was well past the stages of containment. The pandemic was going to
get a lot worse before it got better, especially in New York City. My
brother was convinced everyone in the U.S. would become infected at some
point.
A week of van life had already dramatically shifted my daily routine, and
the pandemic fully disrupted national life as we know it. My baseline for
normalcy dug itself a grave, 6 feet deep, honoring social distance.
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After being inundated by coronavirus coverage, I was spooked and eager to
get out of town. But, similar to trends in Washington state, a growing
backlash from locals at popular outdoor destinations, such as Moab, Utah,
and Bishop, California, discouraged outside visitors. Climbing and biking
influencers echoed this message on social media and encouraged folks to stay
local with their outdoor activity. National parks sent mixed messages by
closing visitor centers, but leaving parks open and free.
The author goes about his morning routine with the desert and mountains of
Death Valley mingling in the background. (Ethan Goodwin / Special to The
Seattle Times)
The author, right, and his brother Ethan Goodwin pose in front of the van
they lived in around the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. (Ethan
Goodwin / Special to The Seattle Times)
1 of 2 | The author goes about his morning routine with the desert and
mountains of Death Valley mingling in the background. (Ethan Goodwin /
Special to The Seattle Times)
These measures were sensible, but they put nomadic vandwellers in a new kind
of limbo. Without a permanent place of residence, what was considered local?
How could we reduce our COVID-19 footprint living on the road?
On our last night, we parked at the Bearclaw Poppy Navajo Trailhead, a
popular destination for off-road trails just outside St. George. My brother
and I went for a run followed by push-ups and a core workout. He was
training for a physical exam expected of all wildland firefighters. Nearby,
the engines of dirt bikes and dune buggies buzzsawed over rollers and rock
gardens. The sky popped as folks out of view unloaded guns in target
practice. It felt like we were on training grounds for an improvised
militia.
Since 9/11, the threat of catastrophe has always been there and not there.
Disasters were unexpected, but never a surprise. Climate change, in
particular, tested our capacity for doom. We were prepared to watch the
world slowly burn. We were not ready for the world to sicken overnight.
Connor Goodwin: connorg03@gmail.com;