Colorado Is Closed

Colorado has majestic mountains and towering skies.

Colorado hosted more than 86 million tourists in 2019, most of whom were actually Coloradans and residents of neighboring states.  Along with their more than a million international guests, Coloradans love their state. They ski and snowboard and snowshoe in the winter in the mountains. They hike and bike and fish and hunt throughout the state all year round. Colorado hosts music festivals, movie festivals, literary festivals, winter sports competitions, Broadway shows, concerts -- you name it, we got it.

But Colorado is closed.

Not the normal closure for winter. The road to the top of Mount Evans closes after Labor Day and doesn't reopen until late May or early June based on snowpack. Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park closes in October and reopens in late May or early June depending on the snowpack. Rocky Mountain National Park, however, normally stays open. Even the park is closed now.

I had a trip planned. The Air B and B was reserved for March 4 through March 7. The registration check was sent for the Association of Writers and Publishers Conference (AWP) in San Antonio Texas scheduled for March 5-7. Airlines tickets were purchased Denver to Houston for March 4, and the return flight March 8. My daughter would pick me and one of her partners up at Hobby Airport. We would have lunch with her husband there in Houston, then she would drive us to San Antonio.

Anticipation was high. Carolyn Forché, American poet, human rights activist, and my daughter's mentor would be there and I would get to meet her. I figured Jeffrey Brown, PBS News Hour's Arts Correspondent, would be there. (He has the perfect job for me -- he gets to interview novelists, historians, poets, artists, musicians. Not just movie stars and sports figures who are hocking a new movie or sneakers or some such.)

Before the day came to fly to Texas, I learned that Forché would not be there. Well, there was still Jeffrey Brown. 

As February wore on, reports of a new corona virus on the other side of the world were gathering attention. Warnings of an epidemic with the possibility of becoming a pandemic were sharing news time with snow storms.

Then I got an email from AWP saying that with the impending arrival of the new virus to the United States we could, if we did not want to travel, get our registration fee refunded or applied it to next year's conference. But the conference would go on as planned. And I went to Texas as planned. Even with half the expected ten thousand participants no-shows and about half the panel discussions cancelled, it was still great! And if Jeffrey Brown was there, I missed him.

When I returned to Colorado on March 8, our niece and her family were staying with us before they went up to the ski area at Breckenridge on Monday, March 9. 

I walked with my walking group Tuesday, March 10. Went to my exercise class at the rec center on Wednesday, March 11, and walked again with the group Thursday March 12. My normal schedule -- exercise at the rec center Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. By that Thursday afternoon Jefferson County's (where we live) libraries and rec centers were closed for two weeks. The parks were still open for walking which our walking group did in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. After we walk we normally go for coffee at local shops. We continued to walk and go for coffee.

Sunday, March 15, I heard an announcement on the news that the Colorado Public Health Department was recommending anyone who had been in four Colorado counties during the previous week should self-quarantine for 14 day. Breckenridge is in Summit County, one of the four counties. I called our niece to see if she had heard. She had not. They had returned the day before to their home in Albuquerque on the Air Force base where her husband is stationed. She said "everything is changed." The Air Force base was closed. They were restricted to their home. Her children's schools were closed.

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2020. Governor Polis set statewide restrictions including closure of Colorado's schools; restricted gatherings to no more than 10 people; set the six-feet social distancing; closed dining areas in restaurants and bars, allowing only pick-up and delivery services; stopped the ski lifts and ordered ski resorts to close until April 6.

(In the U.S. we get to pinch anyone who does not wear green on St. Patrick's Day. Here we are maintaining our six feet distance and remotely pinching Joe.)

On March 25, Governor Polis put the State of Colorado in complete lock-down, with a stay at home order. This started on Thursday, the twenty-sixth at six in the morning and was scheduled to last through April 11. It is now extended through the month of April.

Grocery stores some days have plenty of this and not so much of that. And other days, just the opposite. Inexplicably there has been a run on toilet paper (No pun intended) and, as if the situation were not disquieting enough, on guns and ammunition.

We are still walking, maintaining our six feet social distancing, both while we walk and while we visit after we walk. We bring our own drinks and treats.

And today we held our first audio/video meeting online. Some bugs definitely need to be worked out for this.

But we'll get it figured out. And we will get through this together.