Venturing Out

June 3, 2020

Meredith



 





Venturing Out
 
With the lifting of some restrictions, the county reopening as of June 1^st to tourists and restaurants finally being allowed to have actual dine-in guests for the first time in months, the Covid-19 pandemic feels as if it is improving slightly, especially since the news has found a story to cover that is not pandemic related with the tragic death of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a ruthless police officer who pinned the man down with a knee to his neck as he literally died begging for relief. 

 











That event and the social unrest that has followed with nightly protests and rioting across the country have dominated the news coverage pushing Covid-19 to the side at least for the time being. It has been a dark and frightening time across the country and the coronavirus cases continue to rise in the United States with currently 1,823,214 confirmed cases here and 105,814 deaths attributed to the virus nationally. Locally things remain fairly stable with 109 cases in Monroe County, still 41 in Key West and the 3 deaths that came early in the pandemic.







 

Rob and Meredith



After being mostly alone in isolation since mid-March, Kathy and I started making baby steps about getting back out into the world as it slowly reopens with new guidelines and procedures designed to heighten safety and lessen possible exposure to the virus. We went to our first small group event at the home of our friends Nadene and Trevor who hosted a small gathering of about nine total people to celebrate and witness the virtual graduation ceremony of their daughter Meredith from kindergarten.









Nadene, Meredith and Trevor



The school hosted a virtual zoom graduation where each child who was graduating broadcasting from their own home as part of a ceremony for the entire school, each family could join and watch on-line as the students did their own individual march and received their diplomas from their family as the rest of the school watched on-line. Such is the new reality and I must admit it worked like a charm and while probably not as intimate as the in person event might have been, it was still pretty cool.
Meredith was in all her young glory as she accepted the certificate from her Uncle Rob and threw her cap just as if the ceremony had been held at the school and the small crowd of gathered friends celebrated her accomplishments before enjoying a nice lunch and a celebratory cake. 

 











Later in the week, Kathy and I returned to the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge which is about 30 miles up the road in Big Pine Key to visit the Blue Hole, do some hiking and go out to a restaurant to eat for the first time since the pandemic started. We choose the famous No Name Pub on Big Pine which is renowned for their pizza and isolated location and we were the only customers in the place. It felt very safe as all the staff were wearing the requisite face protections and the tables were indeed situated at six foot intervals, which would have mattered if there were other patrons.















It felt good to be out again, though still it had an air of strangeness, much like just about everything does these days, but the pizza was delicious and we had a great afternoon. We even got to see some Key Deer on our way out which put a nice cap on a wonderful getaway from the routine we have been in for months. It was brutally hot out, as summer seems to have arrived suddenly in full force, but still well worth the trip up the Keys. Hopefully we will be able to get out more often as the summer moves onward.







 





Anything would be better than staying home watching the news, an already dreadful and dreary year has gotten much worse as the racial inequities of our society have been laid bare once again. Hopefully the anger, frustration and fear that is being felt across the country will actually have some sort of a greater impact this time around.