We have a family member who lives in Texas.
You know – Texas, where the recent headlines look like this:
And this:
And this:
This past Saturday, we and other family members got this email from the Texas family member, leading me to think that maybe there aren’t enough COVID opportunities in Texas – so she and her husband are traveling 7,355 miles to find more:
“If everything goes as planned here, we are getting on an airplane Monday with an ultimate destination of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Following a ten-day tour we fly to Baku, Azerbaijan from whence we will spend 12 days in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. Then we go to France for 2½ weeks, flying home on September 22.”
In case the travelers are interested – which they obviously are not – here are the most recent fully vaccinated rates for those first four countries:
Uzbekistan: 3.7%
Azerbaijan: 22.5%
Georgia: 8.6%
Armenia: 2.1%
We couldn’t help but wonder why the hell they were taking this trip now.
Her email continued,
“In the midst of COVID, one may well wonder why the hell we are doing this. Well, I guess it’s because it was all planned long ago and has already been cancelled once.”
That makes about as much #*?@%$! sense as my suggesting there wasn’t enough COVID in Texas for them.
She closed with this information:
“Assuming our Covid tests (first one this afternoon) are clean we can get on a plane Monday afternoon, and then we will be day-to-day for each segment of the trip and each new COVID test. We’ll keep you posted.”
Oh, great!
A trip planned around getting multiple tests for COVID and then waiting for the test results.
And if they test positive, then what? Maybe quarantine for 10 days in a cozy little B&B in the Nagorno-Karabakh area…
…where Armenia and Azerbaijan were at war, until a November 2020 ceasefire that’s been described as “unsettled – the conflict has only been postponed, not resolved.”
I guess the Texas travelers weren’t interested in that, either.
Well, they’re both fully vaccinated, and all I can do is hope they stay safe and come home to healthy to Austin, Texas.
Of course, Austin is no walk in the park, either:
I Hate Houseguests 