Item

A Taste of Normal

Title (Dublin Core)

A Taste of Normal

Disclaimer (Dublin Core)

DISCLAIMER: This item may have been submitted in response to a school assignment prompt. See Linked Data.

Description (Dublin Core)

I am sharing the first photograph I took on a camping trip in Mammoth Lakes, CA in July 2020. I spend a lot of time outdoors camping and hiking. At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, I cancelled my planned trips for the first four months. I also stopped hiking because local trails were so busy and I tended to avoid close distance to strangers even outside. The trip to Mammoth Lakes was setup because my sister and I decided we had to get outside. Masks were still required in many public places, but there weren't restrictions on camping. I remember two distinctive reactions to the camping trip. It was our first time being around a lot of other people in public and so we were on high alert to avoid close interactions and were wearing masks any time we went inside the little campground shop for firewood. What came as a shock was the relaxed manner the other campers enjoyed their weekend. I felt like I was outside looking in at an exhibit. I was happy to be outside, but I felt removed from all the other campers. To see others in person experiencing the pandemic so much differently than I was, felt very isolating. However, we drove to Mammoth to get a taste of regular life and it did do that as well. Our last night there, a bear wondered into the campsite. It was scared back into the woods about 20 yards from our campsite. The next morning the bear wondered back in and I woke up to it smelling around our neighbor's tent. The bear eventually went on its way. I was so grateful to that bear for giving me a story, an experience. I had felt like every day was the same since March and was just happy to see a big beautiful animal. I was also grateful to have a camping trip that helped me to feel that at some point I'd do normal things again. When something so sudden and intense like a pandemic occurs I think it's normal to feel like nothing will ever be the same again, but the camping trip and being outside felt normal enough to give me a little peace.

Date (Dublin Core)

July 3, 2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

self

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Kiley Spillers

Event Identifier (Dublin Core)

HST643

Partner (Dublin Core)

Arizona State University

Type (Dublin Core)

Photograph

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Travel
English Social Distance
English Animals

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Mammoth Lakes
camping
isolation
normalcy
bear

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

Mammoth Lakes
outside
camping
normal
taste of normal
first experience outside

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Tourism story for the COVID-19 Archive

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

01/29/2025

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

03/02/2025
03/03/2025

Date Created (Dublin Core)

07/03/2020

Item sets

Covid 19

This item was submitted on January 29, 2025 by Kiley Spillers 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

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