Having just returned to Seattle from Arizona and the California Coast, I thought it might make some sense to try to make some sense of our three-week road trip. It seems each time we go down to Sedona, something changes along the way and we get back to Seattle only to find a new world. In early March we flew to Sedona to help out with two back-to-back trainings that Ruth had going. We were vaguely aware that the ‘Wuhan virus’ had spread to the U.S. and that a case had been found in Seattle. The flight down to Phoenix was full. The airports were both full. Restaurants in Sedona were full. The pink jeeps were full of tourists, bouncing around the red rock country.

When we flew back on March 10, we got an indication that things were changing at rental car return when the agent told us to simply leave the car and walk away. That sounded pretty cool. We then noticed that the airport was mostly empty. We had a meal at our favorite restaurant there, and noticed that we were seated at alternate tables. The flight was half full. Seattle airport was empty.

The day after we returned, Seattle - and the rest of the country, actually most of the world - was in complete lockdown.

This time we undertook a road trip to Sedona at the end of May, expecting some adventures and challenges due to the ongoing pandemic. We returned to Seattle three weeks later to find everything changed yet again, this time in the throes of the BLM movement.

To be honest? We were a bit confused. When we left Seattle, the progressive media had been championing the need to stay inside while the right-wing and its various fringe elements were out protesting, brandishing guns on capitol steps and claiming the whole thing to be a hoax engineered by the CNN/NYT mob. By the time we got back to Seattle, the progressive media was now in full support of a very different set of crowd protests. It is a confusing time.

Here are a few chosen photos from a road trip across Pandemania.