March 11, 2020
Plot Twist: Oh Covid-19, What Hath Thou Wrought?
We were about three hours into our drive yesterday (Tuesday) when the Queen Mother of all shockers arrived in the form of an email, on the phone. It was a message from the organizers of the Skinny Tire Festival bike event, which in the way of a gentle reminder dear reader, is the whole reason we are making this trip. It read:
It's with immensely heavy hearts, and after a fair amount of pressure from local entities associated with the handling of COVID-19 in Moab, that we have decided to cancel our 20th Skinny Tire Festival (March 14th-17th.) We can not express enough sorrow for the late nature of this announcement. 48 hours ago we were told our event may be canceled. 24 hours ago we were told a meeting would occur to determine how and if our event could proceed. 12 hours ago we were told a list of stipulations was being developed that may allow us to have our event. And as of 10 am on 3/10/2020 we had yet to receive those stipulations or official word on whether we could still have our event. All of that occurring while wanting to be good stewards to our participants, staff, volunteers, and fellow Moab community members, led Beth and me to cancel the event.
I won’t repeat the phrase I uttered other than to say it resides in the vicinity of “AWWW SHIT!” Or somewhere in that neighborhood. There was an immediate sense of doom-struck outrage and I had to swallow the urge to literally curse the fates, out loud, there in the Iowa highway rest area where we had stopped for a break. I stood there a bit and pulled myself together to review our options.
I reckoned we could turn around, cancel whatever reservations we had made that were cancelable, take all the gear home, unload, go pick up the dogs and then mope around the house for a week or so cursing our luck. That sounded like not much fun.
Then, clarity.
“Wait a minute,” I thought. We didn’t need the actual event to ride our bikes. We knew the routes that had been planned, we had our bikes, we are truly experienced riders and can handle it on our own. So as long as the Utah State Health Department wasn’t going to quarantine the city of Moab, or the entire state, we could show up and ride our bikes wherever we damn well pleased.
Heck Yeah!!!
Margaret and I were a little giddy with that realization and we decided to keep the car pointed west for our appointment with Moab. In an odd way it even opened up the timing of all this to be more flexible. If there was a day later in the week that was more amenable to riding we’d do it then, instead of being required to do all the riding Saturday through Tuesday. So off we go. We will ride our bikes in Utah, Skinny Tire Festival or not.
Now, I’m no microbiologist, nor am I a public health expert, or any other field which entitles me to anything other than a layman’s opinion, but I will say that it seems everyone has absolutely lost their collective shit about the Coronavirus. Two friends who we met riding in Death Valley last year were planning on coming to this ride, even after it was cancelled, but just today messaged us to say they were going to stay home in New Mexico after all, because it was announced that any state employees who voluntarily leave the state will be required to self quarantine for 14 days before they can return to work. That doesn’t affect our friends yet, but they are in public sector jobs that may see that requirement forced on them as well and they didn’t want to risk it
Marg and I, being retired answer to NO ONE!!! That is a great feeling.We can tell The Man to shove off, and we are doing just that. Stay tuned though. Maybe Utah is going to “Build That Wall” around their boundaries to keep Bad Hombres like us from infecting their pristine citizenry.
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