Final Preparations

 Before each trip, it’s the final set of details that puts me on edge. In this case, flying I during the pandemic adds an additional layer of anxiety to the preparations. In this case it was required to take a COVID test (PCR) prior within 48 hours before the flight. It turns out that many of the testing services only guarantees results within 72 hours. So the days leading up to departure, we're on the phone trying to find out where we can go to take the tests and get the results back in time to make our flight. After hours on the net and trying to reach a person to answer the phone, we resorted to loading in the car and going from testing center to testing center to find a place. After several visits we stumbled into a pharmacy that had signs that indicated COVID vaccines, perhaps they would have testing as well. The pharmacist said no, however a customer that has done some traveling recently pointed us to a location that had returned her results within 24 hours. We swooped over to the location to confirm. We were now 72 hours from departure so we waited one more day and 48 hours out, we arrived back at the urgent care center. Had our noses swabbed and went on with our business. 

24 hours later, Ed and Rose got their negative results and my status was still “pending”. The next day, with 18 hours until departure, I make a call to see if I can hurry them up a bit by explaining the time constraint. With a weak promise that they will check on it, I hang up. However, to my releaf, a ½ hour later, I checked the website and the results were in with a negative status, saying the ai did not have COVID. So after printing our a hard copy, I was good to go.

All that remained was to do the final packing, not to forget anything on the checklist and try to get a couple of hours of sleep before departing for the airport at 4 AM.