Item
Hiking Boots
Title (Dublin Core)
Hiking Boots
Disclaimer (Dublin Core)
DISCLAIMER: This item may have been submitted in response to a school assignment prompt. See Linked Data.
Description (Dublin Core)
If COVID had not happened, I would not own these hiking boots. As lockdown stretched into the late spring and summer of 2020, my friends and I missed being able to see each other. We lived in Vermont at the time, which was both politically and socially strict on social distancing and masking protocol to limit the spread of COVID in the state. In order to spend time together, three of my friends and I started hiking at least once a week, as this allowed us to be together while also being socially distanced. Prior to the pandemic, none of us had been particularly interested in outdoor physical activities like hiking, and we were not in particularly good shape. By the end of the summer, we had all hiked at least 200 cumulative miles.
As winter crept in, we did not want to stop hiking. The microspikes next to the hiking boots allowed us to continue hiking together and remain social through the lonely winter months. The second picture was taken on February 21, 2021. It is of two of my friends taking a break on one of our winter hikes. They both have masks around their ears which they would put on when another person passed us on the trail. It was a cold day, but we prolonged the hike as long as we could so that we wouldn't have to leave each other. A month after this photo was taken, we got all got our first dose of the COVID vaccine which, a month later, allowed us to finally be together indoors again.
When I think of COVID, I think of the joy of hiking with my friends, a hobby which we continue to this day, but I also think of the pain of not knowing what the future would hold for us. I think of the feeling that time was standing still and the mix of peace and fear that brought me. As the vaccines began to be rolled out and the world started to open back up, the four of us decided to move together to Arizona to escape the cold and the memories of lockdown. I left most of my possessions behind, but I kept these hiking boots and microspikes, just in case.
As winter crept in, we did not want to stop hiking. The microspikes next to the hiking boots allowed us to continue hiking together and remain social through the lonely winter months. The second picture was taken on February 21, 2021. It is of two of my friends taking a break on one of our winter hikes. They both have masks around their ears which they would put on when another person passed us on the trail. It was a cold day, but we prolonged the hike as long as we could so that we wouldn't have to leave each other. A month after this photo was taken, we got all got our first dose of the COVID vaccine which, a month later, allowed us to finally be together indoors again.
When I think of COVID, I think of the joy of hiking with my friends, a hobby which we continue to this day, but I also think of the pain of not knowing what the future would hold for us. I think of the feeling that time was standing still and the mix of peace and fear that brought me. As the vaccines began to be rolled out and the world started to open back up, the four of us decided to move together to Arizona to escape the cold and the memories of lockdown. I left most of my possessions behind, but I kept these hiking boots and microspikes, just in case.
Date (Dublin Core)
Creator (Dublin Core)
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Event Identifier (Dublin Core)
Partner (Dublin Core)
Type (Dublin Core)
Photograph
Text
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Health & Wellness
English
Social Distance
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
02/05/2025
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
02/23/2025
03/03/2025
Item sets
This item was submitted on February 1, 2025 by Kailin Farrell using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.New Tags
