THE WILD ADVENTURE HOME: London to Kauai.. a long, crazy trip to “safety”

As our flight from Barcelona touched down in Gatwick in mid-March, we could only wonder where our bags were, and how long before we would get them back, if ever. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but with the craziness of the pandemic, and the fact that countries were starting to shut their borders, we really didn’t know what was going on and the airlines made it clear that they didn’t either. After putting in our lost bag claim (fortunately, we were first in line), we grabbed a bite to eat in the airport before walking over to our hotel. We thought it best to eat in the airport since a restaurant there was open, it was late evening, and we didn’t know the status of food at the hotel.

I should note here that the people in London did not seem to recognize that there was a raging pandemic sweeping across the world, because very few people were wearing masks and/or social distancing. We even had some people laugh at us because we were wearing masks. That would change very quickly over the next week.

The next day we trained into the City to retrieve a bag from our friend Amanda’s flat, and picked up some much-needed toiletries. Since our friend’s flat was close, we took the opportunity to eat lunch at our favorite pizza joint in Camberwell, Theo’s. I needed my luggage because it had business clothes for my next set of interviews, and it had a few additional warm clothing items for both of us. Yes, I was going to an interview that week. In retrospect, not the best decision I have made, but I was excited about working for this great company in London. As a side note, that position was eventually put on hold due to the Pandemic. ☹

The following day, we packed up our stuff and moved into our Airbnb apartment across from the famous Chelsea Football stadium (that is European Football - soccer - for all you Americans). It was an older building, but the unit was on a high floor and was nice and comfortable. Most importantly, it had a lot of extra toilet paper!! 😊 We headed out to pick up some groceries, but noticed a little tiki bar on the way, so we thought we would stop in for a drink and snack. We were still surprised and hestitant that indoor bars & restaurants were still open, but there was nobody in the place, and the waiter told us that things were starting to slow down. The MaiTai and pizza were pretty good. We then did some shopping and stocked up for a 6 day stay.

We thought about going to visit with our friend Amanda, her daughter Florence, and some other friends, but knowing that we would have to get on public transit again, we all agreed it was better not to get together. Instead, we had some nice video chats. We also made a lot of calls back to the U.S.

We did manage to get out on a few walks and do a bit more shopping before the Prime Minister decided to shut the UK down. People went into panic mode, everyone was finally wearing a mask, and people were told to stay home. People were allowed to go outsideto exercise, but with many rules and stipulations. Through these days, we were trying to manage all the changed flights, cancellations, and redirected routes. I think we had at least 5 cancelled flights, before we were able to book a Virgin Atlantic flight through Atlanta to Detroit. Our original plan pre-pandemic was for Joslyn to fly to Detroit, see her family, then meet me on Kauai for a short stay, while I was planning to fly to LA to see some family and friends and head out to Kauai.

Since Detroit was a lot closer than LA, we decided to head there, with the new plan to self-quarantine in Ann Arbor for 2 weeks, and then head over to spend a week or two with Jos’ mom. We chose Ann Arbor for a few reasons: the first was the close proximately to one of the best teaching hospitals in the U.S., University of Michigan; second, this is where Jos went to school &lived for many years, so knew it well and knew it’s walkable; and three, close proximity to Jos’ family and our friends.

The flight home was long and quiet. There was hardly anyone in Heathrow Airport, and everything was closed. It was very spooky and a little scary. Like out of a suspense or sci-fi novel. There were a lot of restrictions in the UK and on the flight, but it was fairly quiet given the plane was less than half full. We had tons of space to spread out.

When we arrived in Atlanta, the flight attendant told us that the plane was returning to the U.K. now, and was their last flight to the U.S. The Atlanta airport (one of the busiest in the world) was empty. We walked past hundreds of empty gates. We did find a TGIF restaurant open(!), and the waitress was happy to have someone to chat with…as did we. Did I tell you it was quiet…. I wasn’t kidding. I counted less than a few hundred people as we walked around the airport. Thenext flight was fairly full as people were trying to make their way home. All travel was uneventful, and thankfully people were following the rules.

We arrived in the later evening, so decided to stay at a hotel near the airport. Guess what, it was empty too, with only a few rooms occupied. We grabbed a car the next day and headed for Ann Arbor. We stayed in what we were told was a nice off-campus housing but turned out to be a kind of a multi-unit student house on a street with the same multi-unit housing. Fortunately, almost all the students were gone, and the place was quiet. Since this was a self-quarantine, we went out most days to walk around the campus and surrounding areas, many of which Jos lived in at one time or another. The UofM campus is lovely, with old brick buildings, museums, etc. A beautiful place to hang out. Unfortunately, most shops and restaurants were closed. We tried to support the ones that remained open for carry-out, including some that Jos ate at back in her college days. It was a lot of fun hanging out together at Jos’ alma mater. Late in our stay, we were treated to an impressive early spring thunderstorm. Crazy lightening, thunder, and winds. Very cool for a weather geek like me.

We had turned in our car a few days into our quarantine, as it was a very walkable area. We only needed the car to get to Ann Arbor and do some shopping. Jos’ mom, Janis picked us up in the early part of April, we packed the car, & grabbed some grub at the famous Zingerman’s. Yum!!

We spent the next 10+ days visiting Jos’ family…. from a distance, wearing masks, and being safe. It was a really bad time for the Detroit area and Michigan, so we basically just hung out with Janis, saw her brother and family outside on nicer days, and played many board games. It was nice to be in a known space for a bit of time. We had been on the move for over a month trying to get out of Europe and back to the U.S.

We decided that the safest place to hunker down during covid shelter-at-home was at my place on Kauai. My property had a little studio above the garage, and although small and without a kitchen, it is bright and airy. It is also over 2.5 acres of land and fairly secluded. Our plans included a short stopover in San Francisco, to finally change out our clothes after being on the road for 7 months. Nice to have some different things to wear. The trip to S.F. was empty. We managed to do some very social distancing visits with friends, made a few stops to our storage unit, then off to Oahu, and on to Kauai. The flight to Oahu had maybe 25 passengers, and the flight to Kauai (on a 737 airplane) had 4 passengers and 1 dog. There were 5 crew members, which meant 9 people and a dog on a plane that holds over 185 people. And of course, the dog received most of the crew’s attention!!!

That’s it. We finally made our way to Kauai, our original final destination, and where we left back in early October of 2019 for our epic global trip that included over 12 countries on 5 continents.

More stats in our next blog, along with a final wrap up, and some fun fashions blogs too!! Check them out.