5:14 am: Who Needs a Sunrise...

when you've got a moon as big and bright as that one hanging around outside the window?*

Seriously, I have never noticed before the prominence of the May full moon...

With full-time commuting, I suppose having come through March and April in past years just gave me no extra time to rise early and appreciate my surroundings. (By May, I was usually sleep depleted and in no mood for checking out the moon in the mornings of 10-hour workdays. Sometimes you'd spot it from the bus, if you took one of those up-front sideways seats; other times driving in, you couldn't miss it in the sky over the roads, spurring early-morning co-workers to remark on the size also, but pretty much, I never gave the moon during normal workweeks much of a passing glance...)
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* That is truly excellent driving light. The countryside will be all lit up, even on the patches of highway where lights are sparse and you rely on headlights.

Gas is cheap, the cars are well maintained, streets are empty (except for the jackasses in their trucks, I've noticed, playing racecar driver with not many other vehicles out there... Took me a week or two thinking those were motorcycles racing their engines and "vrooming" it up. Nope. The boys in the trucks, accelerating hard from the stoplight. Hopefully they will adjust when more cars are back on the road...)

It's tempting, but I am keeping the faith and staying put. Road trips after sacrificing a season, just as family reunions after distancing (or paychecks on Fridays!; worshipping as one body; meeting up for a spontaneous meal out...) are some of the simpler joys that I wouldn't cheat myself of.

Independence Day 2020 will be something this July.
Maybe less mass gatherings to celebrate, but smaller gatherings will be planned nonetheless in places we love, once the warmer weather reappears here. Just starting to green up in the past weeks here: dandelions; trees budding open, finally. "Nature's first green is gold..."

Still, the warmth hasn't set in, nor life emerged, like in the green pictures we see of national hotspots. Only 33 degrees out there now, here and in Chicagoland. Yes, vacationing somewhere on the 4th of July, nothing big and loud. Staying strong in America, so we're still around to celebrate being free...