While the roads were clear, snow fell steadily from the slate gray sky. We made our way along Interstate 70 heading west from Denver to our home in Steamboat Springs. Occasionally, during the three hour drive, either Heather or I would remark how surreal it felt to be back in Colorado during the winter for the first time in eight years (some might call late-March spring, but if it’s snowing, it’s still winter). Earlier that morning we had awoken in Miami, looked at our meager wardrobe of shorts, tank tops and flip-flops and wondered how we would fend off the cold that would greet us later in the day. The day before we had been sitting at Driftwoods, a beach bar in Hopkins, Belize, with our new Canadian friends, Tom and Daesha, lamenting our last night in the tropics before we would abandon our winter travels and return to our respective countries. The preceding forty-eight hours had been a confusing and stressful time. On Friday we were taking a wait-and-see approach: we’ll spend a couple days in Hopkins, on the central coast, before moving a bit south to Placencia, where there were more tourists as well as more lodging and dining options. If we had to stay a while it seemed like the place to be. That night, Tom came over to our cabin to tell us that the Belizean government had just announced they would close the country’s only international airport on Monday. The land border to Mexico would close at midnight. The crossing to Guatemala had already been shut down days earlier. They were trying to get flights back to Vancouver. Now the question we had to ask ourselves was this: could we handle staying here for at least another month? What if the closures were extended for an additional month, or two? That seemed a little too risky. We decided to buy tickets for a Sunday departure back to the US, then went to sleep. By morning, I was convinced we had made the wrong choice. I wanted to stay and wait it out. Why would we return to the States, where the virus was running rampant – even our small town had it’s first confirmed case. Belize was virus-free and seemed to be doing everything it could to prevent infections from coming into the country. But saner heads (that would be Heather) prevailed and we stuck with the plan. So on Sunday morning, the four of us loaded ourselves into a taxi and made the two and a half hour drive to Belize City’s airport. Golden, our driver, was boisterous and entertaining. The ride was enjoyable, the time passed easily given the light-hearted conversation. But as the airport came into view, we all grew silent. Reality was setting in – our trip was over and much uncertainty lay ahead. While we waited for our flight the first news reports came in: Caye Caulker was shutting down (an alternative to Placencia we had considered returning to for a long-term stay). Later, as we landed in Miami, the Belizean government announced the first positive test result in the country. Hotels, bars and restaurants were ordered to close. Transportation to the islands was halted. We had gotten out just in time! We considered staying in Florida for a bit, hoping to put off our return to the cold in Colorado. Once again, we made a last-minute decision to get home, so we bought a ticket for the following day. After our night in Miami, preparing for our flight to Colorado, I turned on the local news: Monroe county (the Florida Keys) was closing; hotels in the Miami area were told to close to all non-essential travelers; sports stadiums were being pressed into service as mobile testing sites. Once again, we seemed to be staying one step ahead. Arriving at the airport it was surreal to walk through the nearly empty terminal – there seemed to be more employees than travelers. The flight was practically empty. The Denver airport was the same. And that’s how we found ourselves, in shorts and tank tops, driving through sub-freezing temperatures across the Continental Divide, to our home.

A week into our self-quarantine, we stare out the window of our living room at melting snow and leafless trees. The only people seen outside are those walking dogs. We pass the time reading (four months of magazines – actual paper magazines – had accumulated in our mail box); getting our money’s worth from Netflix (finally) and streaming other channels (did you know there’s a YouTube channel that shows jellyfish videos), getting back into doing yoga on a daily basis and making use of our ‘new’ home gym (moved from the freezing cold garage to the spare bedroom). And, as always, planning our next travels.

We’re still planning on going to Hawaii for the house-sit gig we were picked for back in December, unless the owners cancel their plans or the airlines are shut down. If that happens, we’ll stay here in Colorado for the summer, about twelve hundred miles from the nearest coastline, in which case you better believe those travel plans will include a beach somewhere.