9 days at a National Park during COVID19

Due to a once in a lifetime opportunity, Ian and I had a 9-day window before either of us start our new jobs and when we had no appointments or obligations. After much discussion, we decided to take this opportunity to go on a much dreamed about trip to Yellowstone National Park. The challenge was how to do this during COVID 19.

We had significant conversations on if this was the right thing to do with the rapid spreading of COVID.  One of the questions we have started to ask ourselves as we are navigating is what is the opportunity/ benefit to doing this and is there an alternate option available? We determined that a 9-day window to go to Yellowstone in the Summer might not present itself to us for another decade and that we would work to make choices that were COVID thoughtful during our trip.

We were far from perfect, overall our trip score was 6.2, on a 1 - 10 scale where 10 is the most COVID safe you can be.

How we decided to score:

Some of the scorings are our best estimate. We did not give ourselves any additional points for repeating places that we visited, times that we selected to have only one of us go into a place, or provide any scoring based on the length of time two things that studies are showing can impact the risks with COVID.

Not fully captured here is how often we selected not to do things because there were just too many people. Many of the iconic Yellowstone places we skipped and many of the fun tourist shops and activities we drove past knowing they would be a higher risk level than we wanted to take.



Here is the day by day, activity by activity break down.

We ended up being more COVID safe than I think we expected, but still under a level that I would recommend or suggest. If you're considering a trip similar to this a few areas that I think would have increased the score.

• Groceries, snacks, and ice - more thoughtful meal planning could have prevented us from going into stores as often as we did.
• Skip activities that have a busy parking area - these brought our scores down on many otherwise fairly safe activities.
• Skip anything where you have to go inside. Without a statewide mask mandate we were often around many people without masks and inside this really increased our risk.

The real question is did we get sick from this trip? We have been home for 8 days now and neither of us has developed any symptoms. This does not show that we did not get it and are nonsymptomatic carriers or that we won't still develop symptoms over the next week. We have opted to not go out with friends this weekend as a mild self-quarantine after our trip. 

How to fly safer during COVID19

I used to fly 2-3 times a week pre COVID. Post COVID I have made 3 trips by air since in May/ June 2020 and based on my COVID tests did so successfully. 

Two of my flights were with SouthWest and one with American.

If you have an option, pick SouthWest. They did a much better job than any other airline I saw. SouthWest was only selling 2/3 of the planes making extra room everywhere, extra room in the gate, extra room in the bathrooms, extra room in the airport shops, extra room at baggage claim, and very important extra room on the plane.

American was selling 9/10th of the seats, the empty seats were the very last row and in first class. The result was that everything was tighter, I don't think I was ever able to be 6ft away from another person during my flying experience. 

Overall the 5 different US airports I visited were cleaner than before COVID. I wore a mask and was only asked to pull it down briefly when going through TSA security, other than that I was able to leave it on my whole trip.

Airports and Airlines have changing rules on mask-wearing by passengers, I recommend you look at these before making any plans. Denver had a $500 fine for anyone in the airport not wearing a maks, SouthWest required passengers to wear masks on flights. American was encouraging but not requiring.

On all three of my flights, the in-flight services (snacks and drinks) were greatly reduced, with no options. I did get water and a small bag of snacks on all the flights, the distribution varied each time.

I made some additions to my typical flying behavior due to COVID.

- I had a mask just for the airport/ on the plane. As soon as I exited the airport I switched to a fresh mask and put the used one in a plastic container to be disinfected at a later date.

- I brought my own disinfecting wipes (could not find them at the store so made some at home). I used these diligently, wiping every seat and surface that I was going to use, both in the airport and on the plane.

- My own hand sanitizer that I used after I touched anything. Expect to use about half a small bottle on a domestic trip.

- Expect things within the airport to be closed. Having a water bottle and some snacks with you can help eliminate the stress of the kiosk being closed.

I am not planning on flying again until November and I hope that we will see more safety measures in place on my next trip.

discovering the way that I can be the best version of myself

Reflections are written and delayed posting not a reflection of current status, but a window into a past moment.

My tendency towards an unreserved highly passionate approach has a tendency to lead me to careers that consume me.

Over a decade ago one such career crashed and exploded around me in a way that at the time felt like the only option. It took me over two months to recover from that job and in the decade since I have been learning about how to care for myself; while allowing my high passion to continue.

Learning self-care was not instant and is far from over but I have made progress, and that commitment to continued learning is one of the habits leading to my highly passionate approach to discovering the way that I can be the best version of myself.

Things I need to reset:

- Unhindered sleep - no worries about not sleeping, sleeping too much or messing up my sleep schedule

- Quiet time

- Nothing

- Time with my spouse

- A clean house

- A bit of excitement, doing something like trying a new restaurant, going to a new part of town or a visit to the local movie theater

- Some basic exercise light yoga or a short walk

- Netflix and chill

- Going to the doctor and taking the time to focus on my health


With this reset, my balanced self begins to emerge. I know that version of me is arriving when I start to have, interest in reading, crafts, socializing, more intensive exercise, and somewhere in there a desire to create, express, learn, grow, expand and achieve.

Over the past few years, I haven't had enough of post-reset time to truly live as my balanced self.  It has been exciting to be so fully immersed, I thrived under the high demands, my highly passionate approach was thriving. Things began to change. I found that I crave the more balanced version of myself and started to actively exploring how to pull away from the constant demands just enough to give me more recovery time. I committed to going to the doctor and taking the time to focus on my health and have made the appointments. I have been taking PTO, not for any specific reason but because it is important to give me the rest. I am check-in in on myself to ensure I am resetting. I am tracking how long its been since I engaged in things I love like reading and creating. I am learning more about who I am and what I need.