What a Ride!

So our Coronavirus story began around the end of January.  We were out for Gracy's birthday on January 21st when we began to hear rumblings of a virus that was making some noise in the neighboring province of Hubei.  Within a few days, Chinese New Year had arrived and people began their scheduled holiday.  But before festivities kicked off in earnest, all everyone was talking about was the Novel (or "New") Coronavirus that had broken out in the city of Wuhan (the capital of Hubei Province).

We had planned to spend New Year's Eve with the boys in one of ICC's group homes, but decided instead instead to self-quarantine.  We didn't know the full extent of what was happening, but all signs pointed to something serious.  As the numbers of those infected continued to climb and the safety measures required began to multiply, we began to be concerned that we would struggle to keep our scheduled Visa Run to Thailand at the beginning of February.

On January 31st, merely ten days from the evening we first heard about Coronavirus (now known as COVID-19), we were more than a little concerned that our flight slated for February 8th was in danger of being canceled.  We requested a friend who had booked our initial tickets, Geoff, to move our flight up to that weekend if possible.  The best he could do was move it to Monday, February 3rd.  This set us up for a nervy weekend filled with doubt about our travel plans.  Our concern deepened when within 24 hours of moving our flight ahead, our original flight was indeed canceled!!