Our Trip Home Despite COVID-19

The Coronavirus began to change life as we knew it while we were enjoying our winter stay in Florida. Thinking it couldn't possibly get much worse, we extended our stay for two more weeks but it was obvious half way through the first week that things were just escalating. We agreed. We needed to get home.

We ate as much of our food supplies as we needed and passed the rest to our neighbors who were staying for another 3-4 weeks. The toilet paper we'd bought as well as tissues and paper towels, we packed in the car. I also packed several boxes of pasta, some soup, cereal, a can of tuna, and a box of dry scallop potatoes. I figures that would help us through if grocery shopping was not an option at first.

I also put together a bag of paper towels and some Clorox/Tilex spray in case we found conditions a little sketchy on some of our stops. We had already made our own hand sanitizer from some aloe we found in our condo and a bottle of Simmer's ear that we used when we couldn't purchase alcohol. The swimmer's ear is 95% alcohol but costs probably twice as much for a little bottle than a whole bottle of alcohol would have.


Leaving early in the morning, we stopped at the McDonald's in Key Largo using our mobile app for the first time. That eliminated exchanging money or a credit card. We were on our way on a beautiful sunny day and anxious about the unknown ahead. One of the biggest concerns--locating restrooms.


We plugged in our audio book and hoped for the best. Just north of Fort Lauderdale, we sought out our first McDonald's for more coffee and of course that restroom stop. Would we be able to go inside or would we have to travel on to find another place?