It's almost painful to think about right now but I think about it anyway: Travel. That's one thing I long to do. I can't wait to hop on a flight or take a road trip somewhere. There's so many places I haven't been yet and now that I don't know when I'll be able to do travel again, I feel the need to see the world even more.
This summer was supposed to cover three big trips. Hawaii with my 8th graders (we were supposed to leave a week from tomorrow), immediately followed by a two weeks in Jordan with the Andrews University archaeological dig (Elijah was gonna tag along with me for that one). Then in early July we'd take our annual pilgrimage to Florida for a week or two of sun-drenched days by the pool and hanging out with my mom, siblings, nephews, and extended family. Those Florida trips are the highlights of our year. I can't imagine summer without it. If only the new cases would keep dipping. But while Florida finally registered a decline over the past three days, Ohio is back up again. Sigh.
Whenever this is all over (whatever that means) I have a list of places I want to go. I'd like to fly out to California and then maybe do a driving tour of the West, starting out in Southern California and then moving up the coast through San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and then heading out to Idaho before swooping back down through Utah, Nevada, and maybe ending up at the Grand Canyon. Along the way we'd visit friends and family that live along those routes from the Piersons and the Yips to the Carol and the Worley's to the Sawyers and Torquatos and many more. At some point I'd really like to get in side trips to New England and the Florida Keys. A jaunt up to Alaska would be fun too. We were supposed to visit our friends the Bailey's in New Jersey right before the pandemic hit and that would have involved a day trip or two to NYC as well. That trip needs to be made. We haven't been to Chicago in almost two years. It's time for a return visit there.
Next summer we are supposed to take a family trip to Trinidad and Tobago. Whether it happens next summer or later that still needs to happen. The Jordan dig has been postponed to next summer so we'll see--and as long as we are that close we should probably get in the Holy Land and Egypt. Looking further afield visiting Ireland and the U.K. is high on my list. Spain is high on Barbara's. And then there the places of my people: the African continent--perhaps South Africa, Sweden where my great, great, great grandmother immigrated from and my cousin currently lives, and China, the ancestral home of my grandmother. Return visits to Saipan, Japan, Australia and a first time visit to New Zealand are a must. I suppose that's enough for start.
They say home is where the heart is. But right now my heart has had plenty of home and yearns to wander. To do two things this pandemic has put a stop to: see places and be with people.
But first. ..we gotta get through this coronavirus thing. Here's where we stand. Numbers are back up. After a steady decline of percent of increase for weeks we seem to have reached a valley with percent of increase ranging between 4 and 6% for total cases and deaths. Instead of always predicting too low, as I did the at the outset, or always too high as the curve flattened, I'm now bouncing back in forth between the over and the under. This time I was under. We have had 1,574,490 total cases, a 4.7% increase and 46,000 more than I predicted. We have had a total of 94,202 deaths, a 4.9% increase about 1500 more than I expected. Based on these percentages, I would expect to see 1,648,491 total cases by Sunday, May 24 and 98,828 total deaths.
Ohio and Nebraska both bounced up in new cases a bit over the past three days after a period of general decline. Florida meanwhile finally posted a slight decline. Perhaps not statistically significant, but it still means that clock resets for me in Ohio. We'll see if we return to the downward trend by Sunday.
Total Cases
Florida: 48,585 total cases, 0.22% of the population
Ohio: 30,167 total cases, 0.26% of the population
Nebraska: 11,122, 0.57% of the population
New deaths were up in all three states, with Ohio approaching the upper end of the charts again. We just don't seem to be charting a general decline in new deaths just yet.
Total Deaths
Florida: 2,119 total deaths, a rate of 4.4%
Ohio: 1,836 total deaths, a rate of 6.1%
Nebraska: 141 total deaths, a rate of 1.3%
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