Pandemic, Week 104 (Park City)

This week, President Biden banned all Russian imports of gas oil and coal in response to the war in Ukraine while Senate democrats have proposed a bill to offset rising gas prices by suspending the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gas tax. Russia continued its attack on Ukraine, intensifying bombing near the port city of Mariupol, including a maternity hospital. Vice President Harris is traveling to Poland and Romania to discuss humanitarian aid to Ukraine after the US rejected an offer from Poland to transfer fighter jets to a US air base for Ukraine. The Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill, which limits what students can be taught about sexual orientation and gender identity advanced to the state senate, prompting Disney (with some prodding) to announce it would suspend all political donations in Florida in response. The Endurance, which sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915 during Shackleton's failed Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was discovered by a robot roughly 10,000 feet below the water's surface.

The world reached 457.2 million COVID cases and 6.1 million deaths this week, of which the US accounted for 81.2 million cases and 994,000 deaths.  254 million Americans (77 percent) have received at least one vaccine dose with 217 million (65 percent) being fully vaccinated. DCPS announced that masks would be optional at schools beginning Wednesday, March 16th.

It was a bit of a crazy week for us. We had the entire family over for dinner Sunday to show off the finished paint job. Tuesday, Owen had a concert at Duke. And on Wednesday, we took the kids out of school for to celebrate conferences and a professional development day by heading to Part City with the Telfair-Chas.

Once again we were blessed by the snow gods, for while Salt Lake City hadn't had any major snowfall since December, it received roughly 20 inches right before we arrived.  While it took a while for everyone to motivate the first day (the four level bunkbed might have been a contributing factor), we eventually all made it on the slopes (though some of us stayed out longer than others). The next few days involved some pretty great skiing (aside from some unanticipated moguls, limited eating options due to labor shortages and a somewhat unpredictable gondola), some down time in Park City, and a lot of hanging out. The final day, Allen had actually covered over 50 miles on the mountains (Owen clocked in somewhere in the 40s, I was a little less and Nora stayed home and finished reading Neverwhere). And while leaving was pretty rough (8:30 am flights are always hard but the morning of daylight savings, made for some pretty grumpy travelers), it was totally worth it.

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)