When the April camping cancellation email hit the inbox telling us Big Bend National Park is closed til May 11 it was time for Buying the Bayou.
Camping cancelled
We’d put it off as long as we could, starting with a week, then adding another until we realized that the government was cancelling camping. We’d been running from the truth after two weeks in the Smokies, with Mammoth Cave then Hot Springs closing the day after we toured. With nowhere to go, Barksdale AFB took us in, but just barely, when within hours it closed its gates to essential personnel and residents only. Lucky for us, an RV reservation counted as resident and that’s how we bought the bayou.
Every day someone leaves and it’s down to 8 of us here with no new neighbors arriving at least until April. Between TV and internet news we’re having a hard time reconciling what is going on around the country and across the globe with what’s happening in our insulated community.
Figure this …
The stock market is rebounding big on a stimulus package while COVID news worsens and volatility increases in markets around the world. We now carry a letter that says we are residents of the RV park, and show it to guards before we can we shop for groceries, gas or sinkers for Eric’s new bass fishing project.
The base is basically on lockdown. If cancelling camping and the Olympics is an overreaction out of an abundance of caution, then the stock market must be an overreaction of irrational exuberance of “crisis over” messaging. If the crisis is really over, then someone should tell the nice young men guarding the entrance to the commissary. Louisiana may be third in the nation in the spread of the virus right now (according to Governor John Bell Edwards last night), so it is comforting to see it being addressed effectively on base.
In other news …
The sky was bright and blue yesterday. Eric caught two fish on Flag Lake while Sheri finished her book. A bike to Moon Lake revealed a green slime coating the still water.
There are dirt and gravel roads all over the base with no signs or maps to tell you what lies ahead. Most end with a crazy machinery set-up. Our idea is to ride and map them all since trail accounting seems to be a job well suited for non-essential personnel like us.
