About a month ago I attended the 6th Tri-National Symposium in Ajo, AZ. That was early March. The Corona Virus was flaring up around the world and people were beginning to notice. There were several hundred of us at the symposium, mainly archaeology-related folks from around the Southwest and from northwestern Mexico.

During the meeting I remember being really shocked when a lady with long, light-colored hair loudly coughed just as she was walking toward me at the end of one of the breakout sessions. She had been sitting near the front of the room and I had observed her coughing during the session. For several weeks afterwards I worried that maybe I had been exposed.

The major concern after I got home from the symposium was determining when my wife Jill and I would travel to Sellersville, IN for the birth of our first granddaughter, Luna Sofia Campbell-Hoogendyk. Eventually, it was determined that the birth would be by C-Section, it would take place on March 20th, and we would not be allowed into the hospital due to the virus. As a result, we flew to Louisville, KY on March 24, rented a car, and drove to my son’s house in Sellersville.

The flight to Louisville was notable for several reasons. One, we flew on a Southwest Airlines flight with thirteen people in an airplane built for around 160 passengers. We were all seated in the front one-third of the aircraft and all separated by about three rows from each other. The flight attendants all wore rubber gloves and masks. Many of the passengers were wearing masks. They only served canned water – nothing else. When we arrived in Louisville, it was to concourses empty of travelers other than the few from our flight. Quiet, with footsteps echoing down the empty halls which appeared like antiseptic, empty tunnels devoid of humanity.

During the drive to Sellersville, I was struck by the numerous scattered trees that were fluffy white with blossoms. In places they were single by themselves. In others there were small orchards of them, but they were all beautiful and attractive. I had no idea what they were, but eventually learned they included crab apple trees.

My first impression on seeing Luna, who was already home from the hospital, was that she was SO small. 7 lbs 9 ounces is not large, but she looked tiny! And I was in love all over again.

Jill and I were able to help Zac and Kasey with their newborn by holding her, rocking her and taking care of her whenever she wasn’t nursing during the day and between maybe 9:30pm and 4:00am. As I sat in the living room holding her I could see out the front door and dining room windows. The trees in the distance were bare, brown skeletons, yet to show their spring leaves.

Within a week or two the white blossoms I had observed earlier had disappeared, the bare tree limbs had sprouted new green leaves and there were other trees which were now blooming with different colors – mainly light purples and pinks – in the distance across fields to the west. I began to realize that the seasons were changing while I watched. Back in Phoenix the temperatures were going from an average in the mid to upper 70s to an average which is now approaching 100s. At the same time, I realized that once again I was missing out on one of the two major hiking seasons in Arizona, Spring and Fall, which in Arizona are short periods of cool weather, dry trails and mild winds. By the time I get back my body will have to acclimatize to temps over 100 degrees and hot, glaring sun. I’ll do it, but will have to walk slower, conserve energy and be much more cautious.

To make matters worse, my friends and acquaintances in Arizona are all out practicing social distancing in the wild and posting pictures of wonderful scenery, petroglyphs, prehistoric artifacts and features, and making me extremely jealous. Hopefully, they will continue posting though, because it is the only Arizona desert hiking fix I can get at the moment.

Our youngest daughter, Carly, who lives in a fourth-story walkup in Manhattan’s Chinatown with several others, was being self-isolated in her cramped, 8×10 bedroom. Unable to go out other than for groceries, exposed to the worst of the pandemic across the nation when she did, was going crazy from boredom. Jill decided drive to NYC, pick her up and drive her back to Indiana to stay with us – which she did on Friday, April 10th and Saturday, April 11th.

Because of the possible exposure the two of them had to the Corona virus, Carly and Jill had to be self-isolated in the basement of my son’s home while he rest of us, including Luna Sophia, stayed up stairs. This was a fourteen day proposition which all of us agreed to in order to get Carly out of NYC. Carly and Jill had their own beds, a small refrigerator a bathroom to share and separate access to the backyard and to the street out front for walks and bike riding. Food, laundry, trash, etc., was exchanged at a landing half-way down the stairs between upstairs and downstairs. After anything was exchanged, washing of the hands occurred in case any Corona germs were involved. As of this writing, so far, so good. No one has gotten sick.

Kasey’s Mom and Dad, Deanna and Bruce, come over each day to help with baby sitting Luna Sophia, making dinner, bringing food, etc. They live about fifteen minutes away and are self-isolated in their own home with no exposure to anyone except us.

Zac and Kasey took me to a park across the street from her parent’s home one day to take a walk in the park. It was a welcome break and an opportunity to take lots of cell phone photos. Trees, flowers, a small river, trails, patterns in the ground cover – all were a interesting visuals and became part of my photographic journal on the phone. Luna Sophia was pushed the whole while in her new stroller – and I got a family picture of the three of them.

Since we arrived in Indiana, Southwest Airlines has cancelled numerous flights – including some we had set up as possible flights going both ways for alternative travel options. To some extent that has contributed to my personal uncertainty over our future plans for getting back to Phoenix. Today I got another clue to the possibilities: The date for reopening NYC has been extended until May 15th. That probably means we can’t take Carly back and then fly to Phoenix until then… 😦

Before we left Phoenix, our house was in the process of being painted – and they finished the day after we left. It has been almost a full month and we’ve never seen the finished product. That included sealing some cracks in the wall around our yard and refinishing some stucco on the front decorative wall by our front door – which were then repainted themselves. Wish I could check them out, but it will probably be another three to four weeks before we make it home.

Overnight last night Zac and Kasey went to bed around 10:15pm and I was holding Luna Sophia in the living room watching TV. I have gotten used to watching HBO, Hulu, Sling, Disney Channel or whatever for hours on end with the baby in my arms. My favorites are documentaries and comedic episodes. They make the time pass very fast. I usually am able to watch for 2 to 3 hours straight before she wakes up and wants to nurse or needs to be changed. I do that until maybe between 3am and 6am and then turn her over to Kasey and I go to bed.

This time, around 2:30am, it felt like she had peed and her diaper had leaked on my shirt front. As she awoke, I took her into Kasey and explained what had occurred. When I went back to pick Luna Sophia up at around 3:00am, Kasey explained it wasn’t pee – it was poop. Which explained why the wet spot on my shirt had hardened into a pancake type of hard spot during the half hour. So, I had to clean up before I went to bed at 5:15am.

When I’m not on baby duty, sleeping, reading, eating or writing, I try to help with chores around the house: dumping trash, unloading the dishwasher, filling it, cleaning the stove, washing and folding laundry for Jill, Carly and me, sweeping up the floor, vacuuming the carpet, or whatever. Wish I could do more, but part of it involves learning where things are kept, what Zac and Kasey use to clean, etc. And then you have to do it when and in a manner that it doesn’t wake the baby. Or whichever parent might be sleeping for the moment.

My reading has picked up quite a bit during the weeks here in Indiana. I had gotten out of the habit of book reading, concentrating mainly on Internet news and magazines. I had heard Craig Childs talk at the symposium in early March and decided to read some of his books. I’m on the third one now: House of Rain. It’s very interesting to me since many of the places he describes visiting are places in the Southwest that I have visited and the ideas he describes are ones that I have pondered myself. Even many of the people he discusses are familiar to me and I find myself really getting involved in the book. I wonder sometimes if I could write anything half as interesting and have pretty much concluded that if he has spent the last 25 to 30 years doing that writing, I, at the age of 76, don’t have much of a chance to accomplish anything close to what he has.

Every few days Zac and Kasey order food and supplies on-line for a later scheduled pickup at the grocery store or wherever. Then Zac goes and picks them up. When he gets home, everything is unloaded onto one end of the kitchen table, disinfected, and moved to the other end of the table. Then it is put away or taken down to the landing halfway down the stairs for Jill and Carly in the basement. During the process and afterwards, hand washing is part of the normal routine.

My biggest problem with the food process is that I’m constantly going into the kitchen looking for snacks – and the normal snacks that I have at home are non existent. The good side of that is that I’m probably losing a little weight, although I have no empirical evidence. Need some party mix, trail mix, Oreos, crackers with cheese spread, etc.

Zac and Kasey live in a very new subdivision. Looking at Google Earth, the image of their subdivision is a horse race track attached to some farm buildings and corrals. It only shows a small portion of the entrance to the subdivision as being completed. From the back windows or balcony of their house you can watch the backhoes, road graders, bulldozers and dump trucks working to expand the subdivision on the western side. That involves pulling down forests, burning or moving the stumps, leveling the ground, grading new roads, putting crushed rock on them, paving them and then beginning to put in all the rest of the infrastructure and starting to build new homes. There have to be about 8 or 10 of those in various stages of construction from foundation to roofing and new grass and trees. I feel really conflicted in terms of the forest destruction. Especially since today (as I write this paragraph) is the 50th Earth Day.

Today is rather gloomy outside. It’s been raining most of the day and the rain varies from misty drizzles to more moderate showers. The home just to the southwest of us doesn’t have sod in the back yard yet and accumulates large, muddy pools across it due to poor drainage and clayey soils. The result attracts shore birds, mainly plovers, and our thought is that at some point the state is going to have to establish an avian shorebirds sanctuary of several thousand square feet in size. Right where we can always watch it. Although mosquitoes might become a problem…

Maybe in a day or two things will dry out, chores will be caught up, Jill and Carly will be released from quarantine in the basement, and we can all go for another walk in the park.

More later.