Is Robert Adams still alive? (He is) Driving along the front range on I-25, I could really see the attraction to the area, which was and really still is his home turf. It’s spectacular in scale, and the juxtaposition of the tiny scale of the ‘development’ done here next to the mountains that do not care is sublime; it is a ratio that is just out of our ability to understand.
The impulse persists, though. to try to put a frame around it, even (especially) at 70MPH. The smaller, man-made junk on these rises that go on for miles and miles; the smoke from the fires.
I dunno. We’re out here. We came to get away from the smoke in CA, and there’s a huge fire (biggest in state history) about 5 miles from where we were staying for the last month. The prevailing wind was sometimes in our favor, sometimes not. We were isolating/social distancing in a house owned by a friend of the family; they had a dog that needed watching, and their dates and ours aligned pretty well.
We were already coming to Colorado to celebrate Sophie’s birthday. It’s a big one, and even in the pandemic, we figured we could get away with a small gathering, as long as everyone is isolating properly before (we’re also going to all get tested before we meet, as an additional precaution). Then, of course, we’re going to go back to Cali and sit in our house and isolate for two weeks; followed by the regular social distance / pods we were doing before. It’s not zero risk, but it’s also not a ton more than sitting at home (by my reckoning; I am not an immunologist, please carefully consider your options and risk factors).
I still have complicated feels, even doing all the right things. I guess it’s like any form of security. It’s not a binary, but rather a continuum. My personal threat model for this is “don’t kill anybody” and second “try not to die.” Mask wearing is non-optional in public settings; private gatherings are small, intentional, and book ended by long periods (at least two weeks) of social distancing. We’re following all the rules, or at least as many as we can and still do the thing.
We also spent the first month of lockdown not entering a building not our own house. As we found out about mask wearing, got sufficient masks that fit well enough, we added the grocery store to that list. And I’ve blogged about going camping up in the hills, after that even. Going into a store, as long as everyone is masked, seems decently safe. You won’t catch me going inside a bar or restaurant until this is really over. Isolation in time and space, and try not to die.
That’s it for now. We’re away from the smoke, finally, in an airbnb. I should be sleeping. good night.
