“At first I didn’t like my beard. But then it grew on me.” – Unknown
Four months ago today, March 18, 2020, I left the beautiful island of Puerto Rico to return to Orlando for some medical appointments. Then, thanks to COVID-19, I discovered I wouldn’t be going back, or anywhere, anytime soon.
So I decided to not shave and, since we were self-quarantining at first and then practicing social distancing, not get a haircut either. And then I thought it might be fun to document the growth of the beard by monthly stages.
My beautiful wife was not real happy. For the first few weeks all I heard was “Woolybooger” instead of “Honey.” Then I just got dirty looks.
I finally had to agree to trim around my mouth just to get a kiss, lol, which I think you can see between month 1 and month 2. But otherwise, nothing else was cut, not even those wildly long white eyebrow hairs. Oh, and I also trimmed the ear and nose hairs as needed. No reason to go crazy with this thing, right?
And after the first photo Cindy told me I needed to at least TRY to smile because otherwise I looked like a murderer on the loose. So I tried in the next three photos.
Now I’m contemplating whether I should shave everything and go back to my normal goatee, or (since I’m likely not going anywhere in the field to work anytime soon) shoot for 5 and 6 months of untamed growth. I have enjoyed not having to shave each day or even every few days, but when I wake up in the mornings and see my reflection in the bathroom mirror with bed head and bed face I feel like I’m looking at the Tom Hanks character in “Castaway” after a few months.
What do you think?
The hotel was taken care of with points and overall was very nice. We had no intention of doing much interacting with other guests or staff, but it was nice to see all of the staff wearing masks and to observe evidence of high levels and practices of sanitation going on; such as marked off social distancing areas, personal service by staff at the usual breakfast buffet, plastic shields at the front desk station, and rooms sealed once they were certified cleaned and sanitized by housekeeping supervisors.
Tomorrow morning we’ll leave for our two week stay at Wolf’s Haven. One of the benefits, to me, of our cabin in the mountains is that we are very much off the usual grid of humanity. But the 11 hour drive to get there has caused me to think and plan how we might go about avoiding COVID-19 on our road trip.
So, we’ll leave early Saturday morning and our first stop is usually an hour into the trip at a rest stop so that Bella can use the bathroom. She gets queasy during car trips and it upsets her stomach, especially at the beginning. We’ll pull into a spot away from everyone else and do our best not to get close to others, which is not usually a problem that early in the morning.
At about the 2 1/2 hour mark we usually stop for breakfast and eat in the dining room. This time we’ll stop, but Cindy will go in and get food to go that we’ll eat in the car in the parking lot after wiping the containers down with sanitizing wipes.
For re-fueling stops we have a supply of Bella’s doggie bags I can put over my hand before grabbing the gas handle and using the touch-screen, then I can just throw it into the trash can by the pumps before getting back in the car.
To begin with, 
Interesting timing on 
This virus is highly communicable and, in some cases, deadly. Especially so to those who fall in the demographics of being older and/or have underlying medical conditions. The whole purpose of the “social distancing” advice is to reduce the communicability of COVID-19 so that fewer people overall contract the virus and thus fewer people infect others and ultimately reduce the pressure on the healthcare system to deal with those who are sick. Doctors, nurses, hospital beds and medication (when it becomes available) are all finite. So the fewer people who fall ill, the better for all of us.
When I first heard about the Novel Coronavirus, I thought it was new book about a worldwide pandemic.
But it has always been important to me, especially in presidential elections. I could not vote in a presidential election until I was 21 because of my how my birthday fell in relation to national election years, so it excites me that he could do so this soon after his 18th birthday.
