We all remember our own time during the Pandemic but the Almand's had a different experience to it than most by selling their house and embracing RV life.

This is a funny honest book during those months of Covid-19 when no one knew what to expect. Gerri's very honest in her writing and although there's not always as much adventure as she would have liked they still enjoy the RV.

This book is hysterical as this couple runs from place to place in their RV trying to escape covid. They end up chasing an old favorite song in Mexico and even spend time in a nudist campground when they couldn't find anywhere else to stay. Funny!

I had a difficult time getting into this book. I enjoy travel writing, and a travel narrative in the early days of the COVID pandemic struck me as interesting, but this just felt too much like reading someone’s personal journal to me.

Author Gerri Almand shares her story and adventures of trying to escape the dreaded coronavirus, with her husband Michael, in their RV.
Both in their 70's, with medical issues, they leave for a months long RV trip in February 2020. When Covid-19 hits they are unable to return to their home in Florida which they decide to sell and live a full-time nomadic life.
Their travels include many amusing and remarkable adventures including chasing Dennis Hopper's ghost in Taos, learning the art of the 'wike' in Leadville, spending 6 weeks in a nudist RV park and settling in the desert in Southern California as the pandemic spreads with a fury.
Most importantly is Gerri's honest account of feeling traumatized and at times crazy during their journey. It was very comforting to read this confirming I am not alone in this difficult time.
I highly recommend this timely read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sunbury Press and author Gerri Almand for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

All who are reading this have been through Covid but do we want to read about it? This story is about an elderly couple who started a journey across country in an RV before Covid was known. They bounced around the country as the weather changed and life changed due to this virus. The book seemed repetitive and quickly written. I didn’t find much humor in it but did find the different places somewhat interesting.

Listed as non-fiction humor, this book reads like you're having a one-sided conversation with a good friend. Being stuck on the road, in various RV parks, encountering others who may not treat the pandemic with the same concern as you, leads the author to new sets of concerns. Almand not only admits to some of the unreasonable fears most of us have had, she also admits to less than charitable thoughts. (I'll admit I've waved my arms in the air and ranted about someone, to my husband, more than once during this pandemic - but I'd probably be reluctant to repeat what I've said in print!) She also refrains from blunt political statements; not easy to do with the way things occurred.

An enjoyable and timely read, and some insight on what it would be like if this woman of a certain age would go for the RV life.

Actual rating 3.5, rounded up to 4. Though I had many smiles and nods, it isn't laugh-out-loud humor, IMO.

Running from COVID in our RV Cocoon by Gerri Almand is an insightful and sometimes humorous memoir of life on the road in an RV during the Covid pandemic. I could not help but grin each time Gerri's husband called her a psycho! I enjoyed reading about how they tried to travel and stay out of cities with higher numbers of Covid-19 cases. The author writes about how confining, isolating, and depressing it could be at times as they traveled. The two-month maiden trip to test their new RV became a life-changing experience. "This mask is making me stupid" was a chapter in the book that had me feeling indignation at how Gerri was talked to by a highway patrol officer when she was stopped for speeding. Yes, she admitted she was wrong for speeding, and she was respectful to the officer. It appeared he wanted her to beg or grovel and it made me feel angry that there was a lack of respect by that officer for a person who had never had any type of previous citation. There are many scenes in the book that I could identify with during the past year, except the author's fear of rattlesnakes!
"I'd never return to the person I'd been before the pandemic struck."
I think all people could agree with that statement. It is alarming when you are a senior-aged person and trying to protect yourself from catching an illness that could cause your death from complications. Personally, I had friends who went into the hospital with Covid and died there with no family and friends. It has been scary!
The descriptions of scenery, parks, and places the author visited are beautifully written. So many of the places they stayed are remarkably familiar to me and I could feel as if I were traveling there again as I read of their adventures.
Publication Date: June 1, 2021
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I am not sure why I started to read this memoir, since we were/are all going thru this pandemic and the world is downright nuts now!
I would say "Misery loves company"?
I had to see how this elderly couple managed to run from Covid-19!
Run they sure did!
"I only hoped I could maintain the necessary self-discipline to live through this horror that had become my world."
"One can never really know how they'd react or hold up until the crisis arrived."

It is a wonderful, quick read and many times I could feel my own heart racing as they traveled in their RV to new sites and the same isolation that was felt during the holidays we all once loved to celebrate together.

I predict in a few years when our young children, and some not even born yet, will want to engage in this novel to learn and gain insight on this time in history!
Stay safe, folks!

Real Life Disaster Movie Memoir. This is one of those memoirs from someone who was "on the ground" at an event that so very many of us have lived through and with, and thus someone whose experiences are at least worth exploring. That noted, Almand and her husband are both 70 ish yr old seniors with comorbidities (including Type 1 Diabetes in her husband) that make them more susceptible to COVID-19, and this does in fact inform much of her own thoughts on the issue. Still, as a memoir of a sort of Gilligan's Island - where they went out expecting one thing and got something dramatically different that cast them into a survival situation - this is quite remarkable. From being at Mardi Gras 2020 to being at some of the last NBA games to be played outside the "bubbles" to piecing together where to go in light of confusing, conflicting, and scant data to the various experiences of coming to terms with the new life and reality, this is truly an interesting memoir. Recommended.

If you like geezers and RVs and if you especially like them together this memoir of being on the road during 2020 will be a book you'll want to read. It is made even more interesting due to the unexpected ramifications of COVID for this couple. It felt a little repetitive in places but it is easy reading and interesting to hear of life on the road.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.