Greetings all of you Davefaitlemonders! I apologize for the long absence. I hope all of you are well though these strange times. Here is what has been happening to me. As you know, I winter in Texas. In March, my annual trip to France was canceled so I immediately redirected my plans for an early return to Idaho. Just after that, the Governor of Idaho put up a 21 day shelter in place order. Perfect, that is about the time I get there! Well, things weren’t quite relaxed yet but since it was near the end of Idaho’s 21 day period, I went ahead with my return trip. I quickly realized that I had an obligation to document and publish this journey. I have seen little information about our air travel system and therefore the photojournalist in me kicked in and I began working hard to document the experience.
It was surreal traveling with virtually no people.
This is the Houston International Airport, normally, one of the busiest in the world and on a normal weekday morning is full of business travelers headed out for the week.
Planes were parked all over the tarmac, planes that were usually in the air this time of morning, idle! Almost no traffic on the taxiways and runways.
Changing planes in Salt Lake and the story was about the same.
More janitors than passengers?
Outside the airport, maintenance crews were taking advantage of the low traffic by painting ground markings.
Inside the planes, not much different other than these packets were very common!
My parents live in Lewiston were they store my truck during the winter season. They went to Costco and loaded me up with the basic and essential supplies, met me at the airport, tossed me the keys, After a few minutes of visiting from across the parking lot, I drove directly from Lewiston to my home in McCall where I went into self-quarantine for 14 days. What an experience!!!!! In my estimation, based on everything I have heard and read about the virus spread, there were very few places along the journey where virus transmission could have occurred. A big tip of my cap to our essential workers in the travel and airline industries as well as the TSA. It will be interesting to see what lingering and new permanent procedures this will produce moving forward. Likely it will change air travel much like 9/11 changed it back in the early 2000’s. Oh, and within a few hours of my arrival back in Idaho, the governor extended the stay at home order. Not a problem for me as my life here is pretty solitary already! Get ready, Davefaitlemonde Mountain Adventures 2020 begins tomorrow, y’all come back now ya hear!
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