As the world continues to spiral through the insanity of Coronavirus, we carried on and kept calm in isolation with Ruby. Here is why we didn’t feel it necessary to come home when they said they were closing the border:

• We live on a bus, usually in wide open spaces, where our nearest neighbor is 150 yards
• Todd uses gloves at the gas pump
• And we also use gloves and sanitizer when we grocery shop and maintain 2 cart lengths from people
• We are different from most other travellers because we are fully self contained
  • We eat, sleep and cook at our bus
  • We haven’t eaten out at a public restaurant since we were in Baja (>4 weeks ago)
  • We don’t go for drinks, we have them on board. Our last drinks event was the winery tour (>3 weeks ago)
  • We don’t use public transportation cause we have Cindy the civic

So we are taking all the precautions as suggested. The best part is that the weather is nice here and we can walk and get outside, so why would we want to come home and be cooped up in the cold. We have no idea why we would need to self isolate for 14 days when we come home, because that is our current lifestyle, makes no sense to us but we will do what they tell us.

Isolation trail

We headed to the Lake Mead recreation area. We knew Hoover dam was closed and we thought we would check out the rest of the area and it proved to be so much more than we expected! First of all, this is a national park, but because all government workers were off due to coronavirus, the collection booth was empty and camping here was FREE! I think it would normally be $35 for boondocking with a maximum of 14 days, but I’m pretty sure we could have stayed here longer, since no one was working. (we should have had longer insurance!)

We took a driving tour on arrival day to see what was offered and make a plan for the next 5 sunny days! We toured around the southern part of the lake, towards Boulder City and up towards Hoover dam area. But we checked out one of the many boat launch ramp, that was 700 metres in length (yes that is what I said!), here is the driving tour of that: Boat Launch

Turns out, there are tonnes of hikes, bike rides and amazing sites to see in this national park. Our second day we decided to take the loop on the northern end through Callville Bay, Echo Bay and towards Valley of Fire State Park. This seemed like a good idea, since we could implement the self isolation and adventure all at the same time. We actually had very little expectations, thinking we might be able to have a couple of small hikes and a place for a picnic lunch along the way, but OMG this entire trip was a day of amazing tidbits around every corner!!

First, we found this Red Rock turn out, that looks like someone just plopped it there in the middle of the desert:

Where’s waldo?

Then we found some natural springs (actually 2 sets of springs, in the middle of the desert):Natural springs

and palm trees …

I’m sure this is the biggest bearded palm we’ve seen!

and then we carried on to the Valley of Fire State Park! (WHAAAAAA?!) Right!, which again was FREE! This is only a short 40 mins from Las Vegas and neither of us had a clue/had ever heard of this place before. Next time you plan on coming down to Vegas, make sure you rent a car and take a drive through here! Here’s a video: Valleyoffire

The cabins, built in 1936

Elephant Stone

This was called Rainbow Vista – the colors were amazing!

So this has all been a good distraction from the craziness going on in the world. We did another bike ride and a small hike on other days, but my phone camera broke so no pictures. Don’t worry, for all these activities out and about, either no one was around or people were very far away from us (like >30 feet). Don’t worry, we’ve been paying attention to all media, US and Canada – we know.