10/20/20 – Preparing for Hawaii, A Fox/Chicken Challenge
It turns out getting myself and Sunride to Hawaii ahead of the November 3rdPresidential election is a bit of a challenge. First, up until October 15th, the state of Hawaii had a 14-day quarantine for any visitors. It made no sense whatsoever for me to go there and sit in a hotel room for two weeks before riding. There was no work-around because the hotels all have cameras and if you were seen leaving the room while under quarantine the hotel called the police and you’d be arrested and possibly spend a year in jail. Nope, we want none of that. However, a new policy opened the door after October 15th. The state would waive the self-quarantine rule if arriving visitors could produce a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours of their arrival. Only certain “test partners” were recognized, none of which were initially available to me in my area. Darn, I should have stuck with Kaiser.
Then, a few days later Walgreens was added to the list. However, Walgreens had its own strict protocol. After calling and visiting two different stores I found out test appointments could only be obtained online, no more than two days in advance, and it would take up to 48 hours to obtain the test results. This provided a way for me to get to Hawaii, but an extremely narrow window. I would have to schedule a test 4 days before flying out, do the test 2 days before flying, and get the results the day before or even the day of flying. There would be anxiety until I arrived that everything would be acceptable. I checked flights and found Hawaiian Air had a direct flight to Honolulu. Looking further I discovered that Sunride’s crated dimensions exceeded their maximum checked bag size. I would have to fly Alaska Air whose only direct flight was from Seattle. This would mean I’d have to haul Sunride to Seattle in my pick up, find someone to accompany me to the airport that could drop me and Sunride off at the departure area to check bags, fly to Hawaii, hope my test results were “in order,” rent a mini-van again like I did in Alaska, pick up my bags and drive to the hotel. Upon my return, all would need to occur in reverse order, right down to my “Seattle friend” picking me up at the airport.
All of this constituted a formidable “Fox/Chicken” challenge. The riddle goes like this: a man is traveling with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain. He comes to a river where he can only take one of the three across at a time in a little boat. If he takes the fox first the chicken will eat the grain. If he takes the grain first, the fox will eat the chicken. So, he has to take the chicken first, leaving behind the fox with the grain. He drops the chicken on the other side, then goes back across to get either the fox or the grain. If he brings the grain across, he can’t leave it with the chicken, neither can he leave the fox with the chicken, so what can he do? The answer is he brings the fox, but when he takes the fox across, he has to pick up the chicken and take the chicken back with him so the fox is alone on the other side. When the man gets back on his first return trip, he sets the chicken off and picks up the grain, carries the grain across, leaves that with the fox and goes back a final trip for the chicken.
With a great bit of anxiety, I clicked the “purchase ticket” button for Alaska Airlines leaving October 29th. I wrote in BIG LETTERS on my October 25thcalendar, “Schedule Covid test” at Walgreens. I would have to schedule the test late in the afternoon of October 27th, get my results no later than the morning of the 29th, in time to drive 3 hours to Seattle to check in for my late afternoon flight.
Now, who do I know in Seattle that I could pick up and have them drive me to the airport? There’s Eric, and…..oh boy, my return flight on November 12tharrives at 6:25 a.m. Yikes! That’s a big ask; but, now I’m committed.