For a while, things opened up in California. I am still working online. But restaurants opened (with limited seated and masks regulations) so we were able to get in a celebration dinner for our high school senior who just graduated. Churches opened back up, as did bars (again, both with significantly reduced capacity). Gyms opened back up, with heavy restrictions on capacity and operating hours.

But then there was a spike in cases. I don’t know if there was a spike in deaths because now the highly publicized data focuses on positive cases, not Number of deaths, which is what was highly publicized previously – ANYWAY, numbers are up in one way or another, and as such, there was seemingly great fear among lawmakers that we could see a big increase in number of cases (or number of deaths) resulting from of 4th of July celebrations. AND therefore, the governor of California increased restrictions due to COVID19, which included closing indoor bars, banning singing in churches and most relevant in my life, closing down California Beaches for the 4th of July weekend. Well, he didn’t actually close the beaches. He closed the parking lots of the beaches. As a result, the beaches were practically empty this 4th of July, 2020. Never before have I seen this. Usually, tourists fill up our town on this weekend. The streets, stores and beaches are usually packed. Yes, there were people on the beaches this year – some people found places to park in the neighborhoods. Others, like myself and my husband took a stroll down to the seaside to take in the lovey Pacific Ocean. In comparison to prior years, the beaches were empty.

I am thankful that the governor decided to only close the lots so that we could take in these views (total mileage, about 4 – I forgot my watch again!):