Headed Home (Day 280) — Harmon Family

It was not easy to get home. Almost every flight out of New Zealand was cancelled due to COVID. Could we even get home at all??

(This is another post that is more for us and the hardcore readers. Getting home was important to us, but we did not get back by elephant or anything cool like that…)

Actually, it was not clear that we should go back to the USA at all. NZ was safe, virus free, and united. People were back to being happy and mostly living their lives as they always had. In contrast, the USA had huge problems with the virus. It was obviously a health crisis, but it also was causing intertwined economic, leadership and, moral crises. Every aspect of daily life was upended. It was like nothing we had ever seen.

We did consider staying in NZ longer. One of the ladies at the grocery store (which we could now go to) even offered to have us chat with the principal of the local public school. But, ultimately, we missed home, even with all the problems.

COVID made everything hard, and international flights were among the hardest things in COVID. About 99% of flights were cancelled worldwide, and the remaining ones had super strict new rules that were unclear and constantly changing. Rud and his family went through the long process of making reservations, packing, and driving to the airport (4 hours one way) — only to find they were not allowed to leave. They tried maybe 3 times before they finally got out, about 2 weeks after their initial try. The longest “my flight got messed up” story ever! Costanza went through the process twice before she was able to leave.

We learned a bit from their experiences, and we, along with Cece and Grantastic, finally made plans to leave New Zealand on June 4, 2020 (Day 280).

We had decided to skip our normal house in Boston and go directly to Chappaquiddick. Russell, NZ to Chappy, USA — this definitely fit with our theme of trips from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere!

Chappy has always been special to us. We met on the beach here 15 years ago. This fact is amazing if you know Chappy. It is a small island with very few people, no restaurants, no real stores, and only 1 paved road. But we wanted to be in the place that felt most like home in a time like this, and Chappy was it. Also, we were still going to still be with Ashley’s parents, and we were worried about their health, since they had some COVID risk factors. Being as remote as possible was good.

Right before we left, one of our domestic connections in the USA was cancelled, but we were set on going. So, it became a 66 hour trip door to door. But at least we were going home!

Here we are at the airport about to fly home.

And here we are in the Boston airport the night we took off for the trip. With our whole lives in those same 4 bags!

Here are the kids in the airport at the beginning of the trip and at the end. They grew up so much!

One cool thing about flying halfway around the world: We landed in LA before we took off in Auckland! Auckland is 13 hours ahead of LA, and the flight was only 12 hours, so we arrived 1 hour before we left.

We had a 20 hour layover in LA, since most flights were cancelled due to COVID. We drove to our hotel in the city, and we were happy to have a break. The kids and Ashley went for a walk to stretch their legs. Both kids had to go to the bathroom, and they decided to pee in the yard of the hotel, next to the garage. I think we may have been spending a little too much time way off the grid!

We got into Boston late the next night. Especially with the time zone changes, we had some tired kids…

We spent the night in Cece and Grantastic’s house, and then it was on to Chappy.

A lot of things had changed while we were away. Most importantly, the virus was wreaking havoc with the country in so many ways. We still did not know if we would get sick, if school would reopen in person, etc.

After we were back, a friend said he was so sorry we travelled when we did, with COVID messing up our trip. We actually viewed it the other way around. We are so happy we did out trip when we did! We got in 210 days of amazing travel as planned (+72 more locked down, etc.). We saw so much of the world, and we bonded with our kids in a way we can never recreate in our normal busy lives.

How long will it be before we feel comfortable doing a long trip to far off places? Especially places without good medical care? (That is really most of the world, when you think about it…). How quickly do you think everyone will get vaccinated in places where almost no one has clean drinking water? (Again, most of the countries on our trip.)

We grew so much as a family on the trip. We slowed down and lived in the moment. We learned about other ways of living and were welcomed into so many people’s homes. We spent so much time with animals big and small. It was a transformative experience for our family.

To us, the big lesson of the trip is to do something crazy. Follow your dream! This was our dream —but maybe yours is to write a mystery novel… or learn to play the guitar. Live life! Take the opportunities when you can. We have all learned that life is fragile, and that windows can close, sometimes in ways that were unimaginable only days before.

Ultimately, we made it back to Chappaquiddick after a 66 hour trip - on June 6, 2020. Between the planned trip to New Zealand and the extra lockdown time, we had 97 days there in total. And the whole trip was 282 Days. It was an adventure we will never forget!