Note: I dodged one hell of a bullet. 

Covid-19 cases in Utah (and in the states in general) have been skyrocketing over the last few weeks or so. Utah was one of the safest states to be in during the pandemic until I arrived. Just a few days after myself, my mom, and my little brother settled in our Utah Airbnb, covid-19 cases began to rise dramatically in Utah while people began to disregard restrictions and guidelines more and more. I was hopeful I could safely return to some type of normality while there, such as going for long hikes in the mountains and going grocery shopping. But, no. 

Mom and I drove around everywhere looking for places to hike, but every single trailhead was packed full of people to the point the police were sending people away. We also drove around looking for grocery stores to shop at, but nearly every store except for Whole Foods was very crowded, and there was a long wait to get into Whole Foods. 

So, I stayed put at our Airbnb for the most part, only leaving the house occasionally to go to my mom’s best friends’ houses. Both Priscilla and Jen have been strictly quarantining since the pandemic began. Priscilla’s two oldest kids, CJ (who is twenty-one) and Christian (who is nineteen), have Crohn’s disease, so they have to take hardcore immunosuppressants to slow down the condition’s progression. That has made them at extremely high risk of developing a severe covid-19 illness. I felt safe going to their houses, especially since my doctors, their doctors, and Jen (who works as the dean of a medical school) all gave us the green light to do so, so long as we didn’t do anything with other people.  

My mom and Priscilla wanted to go to Washington state for a week to hang out and look at houses. My mom is thinking about purchasing a house along the Puget sound to live in for the rest of the pandemic. Personally, I’m not too sure about that. I love Colorado and want to stay there, but my mom does have a point. What’s the point staying in Colorado if I can’t see anyone or go to college during the pandemic? Why not go to Washington for the duration of the pandemic, just for a change in scenery? Then, when everything calms down, we can go home. 

Mom would make more money if she rented out all of our Colorado houses full-time and bought a house in Washington. We would no longer be living in Airbnb’s. We’d live in our own house with our own stuff, which means we won’t have to worry so much about the dogs destroying something, and I wouldn’t be so anxious staying in places that don’t look or feel like our home. 

By the time the pandemic ended, we could afford to move to an even nicer house back in Colorado, and I could finally attend college. So, I honestly didn’t have any valid arguments against living in Washington for awhile, and figured I could use some time in Utah to myself while my mom and Priscilla left for Washington to check out potential houses for us to live in. 

Everything was going as planned. We were all safe and healthy despite the dramatic rise in covid-19 cases in Utah and across the country. My mom and Priscilla put some money together to rent out a mansion along the Puget sound for a week. CJ packed some stuff up and prepared to stay with me and the dogs at our Airbnb in Utah. I was very excited to have some true alone time and finally have my Xterra to myself. I may not have been able to go anywhere specifically, but it would’ve been nice to drive around town while listening to my favorite songs alone, rather than having my mom and little brother with me and giving me crap for my “horrible” taste in music. 

Then, CJ went in for a doctor’s appointment after she started having cold-like symptoms for several days. She did her best to ignore those symptoms. She told us she was feeling a little under the weather, but we all assumed she just had a cold. All she had was a runny nose and was a little more tired than usual. If she had a cold, it wasn’t a big deal if anyone else got it. It was just a cold, after all. When we saw her a couple days after she started getting sniffly, she was still her bubbly, happy-go-lucky self. Clearly, her cold was nothing major. 

At the doctor’s, CJ was tested for covid-19. Her doctor didn’t think she had it, but they still wanted to test CJ anyway to be safe. The doctor told CJ to plan on staying with me for the week, and she’d get her test results back within a couple of days. CJ told everyone what her doctor said, we were all okay with it. I still planned on holding down the fort with CJ’s help while my mom and Priscilla traveled to Washington state together.