Day Six
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

What do think when you see a bunch of shifty-eyed guys hanging outside a convenience store, truck stop or apartment building?

Smokers taking one last, deep cancerous drag before entering a smoke-free facility?

Pasty addicts jonesing for a fix, their dealer no where to be found on the urban landscape?

Bored, street toughs with nowhere to go, nothing to do?

Nope!

There is a new class of sidewalk lurker. If you get in close you'll probably hear a conversation that goes something like this.

"It's your turn."

"No way, you do it, I did it last time."

"I don't have any gloves."

"Too bad, open the damn door!"

"Wash your hands when we all get inside."

The issue, of course, is who gets to touch the door and risk getting the coronavirus.

This is life on the road in an age defined by a terrifying bug. Jack Kerouac must be turning in his grave.

Travel is now defined by a new, unwritten ethic. Soon the weakest will open all doors, push all buttons for elevators and take, and clean, change from store clerks before passing it to their masters. 

Ok that is a bit dark but the lurking so others will open doors and push buttons is very, very real. Everytime a door opens at a rest stop about a half a dozen people scurry inside.

Once inside the store, new dilemmas appear. You go to the bathroom and wash your hands. There are no paper towels.  The door opens inward. A line forms until someone figures out how to open the door.

You've washed your hands in the rest stop men's room but left the water running. So you have to touch the faucet and wash your hands again. Wait how do your turn the water off.

You don't, you leave it running and get in the queue for the door.

I am not making this up. We have experienced it repeatedly.

Today we paused for three hours in North Carolina to visit my eldest sister and her husband who is ill and now in hospice care.  It was great to see them. This was why we raced south and east and did not go directly to Boston. They live in an elevator building. After a bit my wife and nephew Tim went out to move the car. 

Winston Salem is still issuing parking tickets.

A middle aged man joined them in the elevator.

This conversation, reconstructed here, went like this:

New guy: "I'm really dreading today."

Tim: "Where are you going?"

NG: "Work!"

Tim: "Why can't you work at home. What do you do?"

NG: "Global logistics."

Tim: "Global logistics, what are you moving," thinking medical equipment, surgical masks or breathing tubes.

NG: "Furniture."

Tim: "FURNITURE!”

Tim: "Who is buying furniture? What are they buying, lazyboys so people can be comfy as they shelter in place and stream Netflix everyday for the next several months."

Global logistics, indeed.

Meanwhile a shutdown is unfolding slowly on our highways. Yesterday I wrote about lifeless road construction projects. Today as we entered Pennsylvania there was a sign warning: "The visitor's center and all rest areas are closed because of the coronavirus."

The service roads along the highways are well travelled And most restaurants are open, some only for takeout. An Arby's off I-81 in Virginia was open to all but there was no one inside. The lane for the auto drive up was long, the wait considerable."

We ate handmade, ham and cheese sandwiches on the trunk of our rental, smug that no-one had touched our food, at least since it was packaged days before. We no longer buy deli meats and cheese, only packaged stuff, a complete reversal of our normal practice.

Tonight we are in Harrisburg, social distancing at our third son's downtown apartment. He made us a hot meal, our first in five days. 

Five days ago we went to a restaurant in Tucson, a mistake we did not repeat. It has been five days, we are not sick. All good so far!

Finally, the sign of the day was an ominous bumper sticker seen not surprisingly in West Virginia:

"Keep honking, I am reloading!"

Be safe.