COVID-panic caught up to us in Las Cruces, NM. That was the first place we saw panic buying, the first time we heard of a cycle tourist who was quitting their trip due to the pandemic, and the first time any restrictions affected us. (New Mexico closed state parks to overnight use and put restaurants at half-capacity.)

We continued on, but kept ourselves open to calling it quits in Silver City. We'd be out of cell coverage for a few days in the Gila National Forest, so we'd just tune out of the news, talk to other travelers, and see what happened.

We met lots of other travelers, including several cycle tourists, in the Gila, and everyone seemed to be in the same boat as us: cautiously proceeding, still trying to make sense of it all. We arrived in Silver City thinking that the panic would probably be short-lived. Outdoors-oriented travel was probably safe, and we needed to keep our heads. First thing after arriving, we settled into a diner called the Drifter (♥︎), and looked at the news for the first time in days... No bombshells. The virus and restrictions were spreading, but it didn't seem like there'd been another seismic shift in attitudes. We'd continue, at least to Show Low, AZ, our next potential bailout point. (It has rent-a-car place.)

But the next day — a planned day off in Silver City — we felt the shift we'd been dreading. We went back to the Drifter, and found the door locked though staff were inside. The waitress ran up and told us the whole state had gone take-out only. What? (Just the day before, we'd been reading news about the few COVID cases reported in NM. How had we missed the news of the new restrictions?) Later we went to Wal-Mart and saw how many shelves were empty. It was starting to sink in. The cycle tourist we met in Las Cruces, now safely back in Germany, messaged me and encouraged us to get home while we still could.

So we decided to stay in town one more day and spent it coming to terms with what we knew we had to do. Then we rented a truck, threw our bikes in the back, and started driving back to North Carolina.