Joshua Trees and Covid Speculation

Above: Joshua Tree Back Country Byway. Sprinter. Washington County, UT. 30 November 2021.

Joshua Trees are prolific between 1500 ft and 2000 ft of elevation in the Mojave Desert. Pictured here are some of the rare indigenous Joshua Trees in Utah, located in the far SW corner of the state. Yes, Virginia, while the preponderance of Joshua Trees are in Mojave Desert areas of Nevada, Arizona, and California, there is a smattering of indigenous Joshua Trees on the lip of the Mojave Desert in far southwestern UT. I've wanted to take this road for some time and was glad TIMDT and Mwah (sic) could do it today.

The Sprinter has been a better-than-expected substitute for annual, winter international travel over the last year. We have logged 28 thousand Sprinter miles in the last twelve months... counting such destinations as Albuquerque, NM, Marfa, TX, Salem, AR, Seattle, WA, Telluride, CO, and Palo Alto, CA... and, points in-between. But, for the California trip, Freddie has accompanied on each trip. Over the same period, I was able to log 8000 motorcycle miles on the Duc.

After the visit to the Utah Joshua Trees, we drove to Littlefield, AZ on Old US 91, then, onward, south on I-15 to Mesquite, NV. At the Mesquite Taco Bell, we had a blunt reminder of how Covid protocols differ from state to state. Throughout the "pandemic," Nevada has had indoor masking protocols and restrictions on indoor dining. We were feeling hungry from some Taco Bell fare, but didn't want to do drive-up/take-out. Taco Bell's indoor dining was closed. So, we returned forty miles to "dine" the St. George, UTTaco Bell where things were operating normally.

Utah gave up Covid masking and dining protocols well over a year ago. November 2020, on our Sprinter drive from Utah to Arkansas, the transition from blue New Mexico to red Texas was astounding. Texas was business as usual, with steak houses bustling, where New Mexico was indoor masking and hyper spaced tables, with many restaurants closed. I'm very glad to be able to live in a red state, which states are more inclined to follow the science with regard to disease management.

The long-term effects of government and business draconian efforts to respond to Covid-19 are difficult to foresee. But, in the short term, we can already see some indication of what the future might hold. Inflation, supply chain difficulties, public school trauma, among others, are problems that likely would have been attenuated but for government enforced lock downs, school closures. Conventional wisdom has it that large numbers of small businesses have had to close as a result of strictures imposed by government. While we were munching our tacos in St. George, TIMDT told me she had read an article attributing shortage of labor to, at least in part, people fed up with being employed by big business. Many people, rather, are eager to become self-employed and less dependent on the capriciousness of big business. Government/business Covid mitigation protocols are likely to have transformative impact that we can't discern clearly at this point.

Virtual meetings, facilitated by applications such as Zoom have transformed work and human interactions in ways that likely few anticipated before Covid. This AM, from the great room of our Ivins, UT home, using my Microsoft Surface Pro, I "attended" a LSDM ROMEO group presentation by Summit County Sheriff, Justin Martinez "broadcast" from Wasatch Bagel, in Park City, Utah... three hundred miles away. Two hours later, I "attended" a live Hoover Institution presentation by General Jim Mattis, former US Secretary of Defense. General Mattis was talking from Washington, D.C. via Zoom to Hoover participants from around the world. During both presentations I was able to interact with each of the speakers. I'm not saying that face to face contact is going to be replaced by virtual colloquies, but, sans Zoom, I would not have been able to participate in these highly informative, interactive discussions. Big change. And, in this case, very helpful to me personally.

Deer Valley opens to season ticket holders on 03 December 2021. Time to get back to Park City.