5 Tips for Roadtripping in a Pandemic...and why I say thanks to COVID

If you’ve followed my social media at all in the last few months you know that we recently moved across the country from the East Coast back to the California coast. To say it was a peaceful experience would be a joke. There’s a massive global pandemic going on and it was especially severe right when we had to list our house for sale.

It wasn’t comfortable to let potential buyers walk through our house - through our kids’ bedrooms, our kitchen, our bathrooms - while new cases of COVID were popping up all around us every day. It wasn’t easy to buy a house literally across the country using Zoom calls and virtual tours. And it wasn’t pleasant having movers and packers wearing their masks like chin straps while we struggled to keep our house a healthy zone.

The whole thing was tricky to say the least. But once we hit the road it was just us four (plus our dog Cali) and about 4000 miles of open highway.

We loved it. All of us. We made decisions as a family, exclaimed over the changing landscape and we laughed more than we had in a long while. And we learned a lot about ourselves, the world, this great country, and each other along the way.

Having just done it, I can now bring you my top tips for navigating that open road while staying safe and healthy in a pandemic:

PPE bag - I packed a bag with liquid hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, lysol spray and extra masks. This allowed us to go into each AirBnB and quickly wipe down all of the touch points and surfaces before we brought the kids and stuff in. It also allowed for clean hands after gas station stops.

Portable potty for the win - this is seriously the thing I’m most ridiculously proud of - we drove over 4000 miles and never used a public restroom. How? I’m so glad you asked. :). I bought this portable potty chair for $20 on Amazon. Our kids can’t stop saying that it was the best $20 ever spent. And I think I agree! We popped this baby out in corn fields, the flatlands of the desert and overlooking Yellowstone Lake. And at least a hundred places in between.

Mini zip locks - the snack sized zip locks came in handy right after each potty break. We’d use them to zip up all of the used toilet paper and the wipe I’d use to wipe down the potty chair. And we’d use them to collect trash along the way so it wasn’t floating about in the car. They also came in handy when the girls wanted some pretzels or popcorn and we didn’t want to hand the whole big bag back.

Pack food and more food - We’re not a big family. There are only 4 of us and none of us have enormous appetites. Especially our 7 year old. But put that girl in a car and she eats like a linebacker on game day. She could crush her breakfast plus all the fruit, chips and granola bars in the car all before lunch. Thankfully we had backups. Plan for the appetite you’ve never met!

Keep things loose- I’m a planner by nature. But for this trip we had a final destination (some 4000 miles away) with no solid plans for where we’d stop along the way. Our only known was that we would stay for good long stretch with my parents in Michigan before making our way further west. Each day brought new surprises. Some days were heavy on the driving and others heavy on the adventures. We took an extra day to head south and visit Ryan’s grandmother in Illinois because, well, we could! We slept near the falls in Sioux Falls, SD and the great Mississippi in LeClaire, IA. I hardly even knew these towns existed before! We got off the beaten path and hiked a little in the Badlands and again in Yellowstone. We spent a night across from the Historic Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, WY and saw our first live buffalo by the Grand Tetons. The next day in Yellowstone we stood closer to a full herd of buffalo than I thought we ever would. NONE of these things were planned. But all of them are now etched into our memory banks forever.

I’ve never done a trip before with so many unknowns but these times demand that, don’t they? This week our girls started school. It’s distance learning, which we’re happy about, but they’ve never even met their principal or seen the inside of their school building. They both logged into their classrooms from our little rental house while we wait to get into our real house. It’s soooo far from perfect, but not really. It is perfect because it is what it is, which is just as it’s supposed to be. They’re learning about math and science but about so much more than that. They’re learning about flexibility and grit. And those are the most valuable kinds of lessons that can only be learned by living through something exactly like this.

So, COVID, thank you. For the month-long roadtrip that would have otherwise been a quick plane ride. For the potty chair I just might hang over our new mantle. For the resilience you raised up in our kids. And for the family time that has increased 100-fold since you first reared your ugly head. COVID, I despise you, but I thank you.