Covid Elopement
By Nadine Hayward
We took off from Heathrow on 7th March, more relieved than concerned that we’d been allowed to fly to Los Angeles. There were mild concerns about Covid-19, but no travel restrictions in place, and we had big, secret plans for our Californian trip – we were eloping, at our age!
It was business as usual in LA, apart from elbow bumps in place of hugs and handshakes. We stayed with our close friends in Glendale, seeing the sights, enjoying Universal Studios, a live TV show recording, restaurant dinners and brunches, wedding haircuts and an authentic LA spray tan before setting off for Santa Barbara on the 12th. Our friends Cece and Brandon were to be our best man and woman (and witnesses). Our ceremony was booked at the Courthouse at 2pm on Friday 13th. We’re not superstitious, but hadn’t realised quite how much we were flirting with disaster.
We woke up on the the 13th to grey skies and heavy rain. It rains in California – did you know?! A message from the Courthouse suggested that we might like to cancel our ceremony, due to new rules on social distancing. We were advised that, if we wanted to proceed as planned, it would be conducted outside in the gardens. Fine, but what about the weather? Luckily a break in the downpour allowed a dry ceremony and photo shoot. We had a fantastic wedding dinner at a local restaurant and cocktails in the bar next door, which was rammed with revellers and live music. We celebrated in style with our friends, and the atmosphere would have you believing that all was well with the world. Watching international news reports on our tablet was the only reminder that it wasn’t.
The next day we drove to Paso Robles for a food and wine tour that our friends had booked as a wedding gift. We had a great gastronomic day, though one of our foodie stop-offs had ended their group tastings sessions due to social distancing, and some local businesses were shutting up shop. We had a final meal with Cece and Brandon at a bustling Thai restaurant, the last normal-feeling evening out. The following day we pulled up at Hearst Castle in our hire car, where a sheriff informed us that the Castle was now closed to the public. We continued up the coast taking in the elephant seals at San Simeon, the very fancy Pebble Beach estate and a 17-mile drive on the Monterey Peninsula. San Francisco here we come! Or not – the TV news in Monterey that evening dropped the bomb that San Fran was going into lockdown.
The rain was biblical, things were finally getting serious, everything was closing and the honeymoon required a rapid rethink. Cece told us there was panic in LA and shortages of toilet roll. A visit to Walmart and its starkly empty shelves was a depressing pit stop. Virgin Atlantic wouldn’t talk to us until 72 hours before our scheduled flight home, so we had to keep calm and carry on.
We worked out a route back to LA to include the most spectacular National Parks, which were still open: Kings Canyon, Sequoia (we had to buy snow chains!), Death Valley and Joshua Tree. Our overnight stays in Visalia, Three Rivers and Lone Pine coincided with the last night of official restaurant dining in each location, with the local sheriffs slapping down increasingly severe social restrictions in our wake. Savvy Americans were starting to self-isolate in RVs in the remote desert locations we passed through. Suddenly the only people on the road seemed to be fellow stranded tourists. Eventually my anxiety outweighed my new husband’s talent for delaying the inevitable. After five days of increasingly limited activity we took welcome refuge back at our friends’ place in LA, arriving with a stash of hotel toilet rolls and soap we’d harvested on the way.
We spent three very entertaining days in isolation playing charades, watching the darkest comedy on HBO, completing 1,000 piece jigsaws, eating and drinking, and being brought up to speed on the wonders of Zoom. We will be eternally grateful for those precious days of quality time with far away friends. Our return was bittersweet – glad to be home safe and well to a gratefully received box of essential supplies from friends, but straight into a locked down St. Leonards and a new normal.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply